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UNDER OUR FLAG 



UNDER OUR 
FLAG 



A STUDY OF CONDITIONS 
IN AMERICA FROM THE 
STANDPOINT OF WOMAN'S 
HOME MISSIONARY WORK 



BY 

ALICE M. GUERNSEY 



" Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer, 
and rise again from the dead the third day ; and that 
repentance and remission of sins should be preached 
in his name unto all the nations, beginning from 
Jerusalem." 




New York Chicago Toronto 

Fleming H. Revell Company 



London and Edinburgh 






Copyright, 1903, by 

FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY 

(June) 



THE LIBRARY OF 
CONGRESS, 

Two Copies Received 

JUN 30 1903 

\ Copyright Entry 
fLASS ^ XXcNo. 

tz>t ; »f 

COPY B, 



New York : 1 58 Fifth Avenue 
Chicago : 63 Washington Street 
Toronto : 27 Richmond Street, W. 
London : 2 1 Paternoster Square 
Edinburgh : 30 St. Mary Street 



CONTENTS 



PAGE 

Central Thought 9 

A Race in Transition, 13 

In the Southern Highlands, .... 33 
On the Outposts. 

Frontiers, 55 

Alaska 72 

Children of the Orient. 

In the Hawaiian Islands, .... 84 

The Chinese go 

" Old Settlers " and New. 

The Indians, 100 

Spanish-speaking People, . . . .112 

mormonism and the mormons i32 

Where Extremes Meet, 160 

Suggestions for Home Missionary Meetings, . 178 

Topics for Thought 182 

Home Mission Books 186 



AMERICA 

My country, 'tis of thee, 
Sweet land of liberty, 

Of thee I sing ! 
Land where my fathers died, 
Land of the pilgrim's pride, 
From every mountain side 

Let freedom ring ! 

My native country, thee, 
Land of the noble free, 

Thy name I love. 
I love thy rocks and rills, 
Thy woods and templed hills, 
My heart with rapture thrills 

Like that above ! 

Our fathers' God, to Thee, 
Author of liberty, 

To Thee we sing ! 
Long may our land be bright 
With freedom's holy light, 
Protect us by Thy might. 

Great God, our King. 



WOMAN'S WORK FOR HOME MISSIONS 
ORGANIZATIONS 
Baptist. 

Woman's American Baptist Home Mission Society. 
Cor. Sec. Mrs. M. C. Reynolds, 510 Tremont Temple. 
Boston, Mass. Official organ. Home Mission Echoes. 

Woman's Baptist Home Missionary Society. Cor. 
Sec, Miss M. G. Burdette, 2421 Indiana Ave., Chicago, 
111. Official organ, Tidings. 

Congregational. 

Woman's Home Missionary Association. Cor. Sec, 
Miss L. L. Sherman, 607 Congregational House, 
Boston, Mass. Official organ, The Work at Home. 
Cumberland Presbyterian. 

Woman's Board of Missions. Cor. Sec, Mrs. Dee 
Ferguson Clarke. Y. M. C. A. Building, Evansville, 
Ind. Official organ, the Woman's Department in 
Missionary Record. (Home and Foreign.) 
Lutheran. 

Woman's Home and Foreign Missionary Society. 
Cor. Sec, Miss M. H. Morris, 406 North Green St., 
Baltimore, Md. Official organ, the Woman's Depart- 
ment in Lutheran Missionary Record. 
Methodist Episcopal. 

Woman's Home Missionary Society. Cor. Sec, 
Mrs. Delia L. Williams, Delaware, Ohio. Official 
organs, Woman's Home Missions and Children's Home 
Missions, 150 Fifth Avenue, New York City. 
Methodist Episcopal Church South. 

Woman's Home Mission Society. Cor. Sec, Mrs. 
R. W. MacDonell, 346 Public Square, Nashville, Tenn. 
Official organ, Our Homes. 
Presbyterian. 

Woman's Board of Home Missions. Cor. Sec. 
(acting), Mrs. John F. Pingry, 156 Fifth Avenue, New 
York City. Official organs, Home Mission Monthly 
and Over Sea and Land (the latter, both Home and 
Foreign, for children). 
Protestant Episcopal. 

The Woman's Auxiliary to the Board of Missions. 
Cor. Sec , Miss Julia C. Emery, 281 Fourth Avenue. 
New York City. Official organ, the Woman's Depart- 
ment of The Spirit of Missions. (Home and Foreign.) 
Reformed Church of America. 

Women's Executive Committee Board of Domestic 
Missions. Cor. Sec. Mrs. E. B. Horton, 25 East 22d 
Street, New York City. Official organ, the Woman's De- 
partment in The Mission Field. (Home and Foreign ) 



SUGGESTIONS 

The methods of using this book may be as 
varied as the conditions surrounding its users. 
The following outline of plans is given for the 
help those who may wish it: 

i. Members of the society read the chapters 
at home and talk them over at the meetings; the 
topics may be still farther elaborated by papers, 
talks and discussions on various allied themes. 

2. The main chapter is read aloud at the meet- 
ing. The illustrations following each section are 
read by different members present, and discussed 
by all. 

3. A leader appointed at a previous meeting, 
prepares herself by thorough study of the theme 
to give the substance of a chapter in her own 
words, and to answer questions upon it; others 
should do their part by asking numerous ques- 
tions. 

4. A given chapter is divided into sections, and 
a member of the society assigned to take charge 
of each section and to present it in whatever way 
she sees fit at the next meeting. 

6. Written questions are distributed, to be an- 
swered from previous reading of a given chapter. 
8 



I 

CENTRAL THOUGHT 

IT should never be forgotten that the end and 
aim of Woman's Home Missionary work, 
aside from the personal salvation of those 
brought under its influence, is to uplift the homes 
of the nation — and, thereby, its citizenship. The 
proudest distinction of America is that it is a 
land of homes. 

To uplift the home requires effort along many 
and varied lines. There must be housekeepers 
trained in all deft and womanly arts of house- 
wifery; there must be nurses and doctors able 
to take intelligent care of the sick; there must 
be schools and teachers capable of co-operating 
with the home at its best. Hence, for the de- 
velopment of a race, or a nation, there must be 
industrial Homes, normal classes, advanced edu- 
cation of young men and young women, that they 
may keep step together as makers of homes. 

With this thought in mind, the subject-matter 
of this book centres around the home, in the 
broad sense of the term. Does an organisation 
of Home Missionary women maintain a school 
for the children in some neglected or forgotten 
region — the reflex influence of the school is felt 



10 UNDER OUR FLAG 

in the homes of its pupils, and the missionary 
teacher, visiting from house to house — or from 
hut, or wigwam, or tepee to other dwellings of 
like character — finds that slowly, but surely, the 
home-life takes on new and brighter aspects. 

Is an industrial Home set as a signal light in 
the darkness of ignorance and superstition? 
Back to the forlorn places they have called home 
its eager students carry the lessons of neatness, 
industry, thrift and intelligence, and the desert 
begins to blossom. Is a kindergarten started for 
the waifs of the street? "Teacher" becomes a 
household word, the name of a friend, and the 
work enlarges into, a Settlement with Christian 
women at its head, the guides and helpers of the 
womanhood around them. 

It is fitting, therefore, that the first book of an 
inter-denominational study course for societies of 
Home Missionary women should deal with the 
needs found, in the main, in the homes of the 
nation. There are other fields of missionary en- 
deavor in the homeland that must be untouched 
here. The mighty task of starting and main- 
taining churches in the great Northwest and the 
colonial sections of the United States, the per- 
plexing problems of city evangelisation, the sup- 
port of colleges in the South and of missionary 
fields covering vast areas — these, though largely 
aided by the gifts of women, are managed by the 
general missionary societies of the church — with 
men as their officers. The womanhood of the 



CENTRAL THOUGHT 11 

church, God-commissioned, gathers up the glean- 
ings, and the Lord of the harvest multiplies them 
into sheaves of golden fruitage. 

1607-1903 — almost three hundred years! It 
is the difference between armed sailing-vessels 
and armored men-of-war, between signal fires 
from mountain peaks and wireless telegraphy! 

It would be an interesting quest to trace the 
causes of present conditions, and note the " foot- 
prints on the sands of time " — footprints of 
pioneers in arts and crafts, in education and 
statesmanship, as well as in want and suffering 
and sin. But this limited study must, of neces- 
sity, deal with the living, active Present, with 
the conditions existing to-day under the flag of 
our love and devotion, with the needs that can be 
met — both for our land and for other lands — 
only by Home Missionary work. 

The fulfilment of the plan of this Home Mis- 
sionary Series involves other books which shall 
deal with the heroic and successful efforts that 
are being made to meet the needs and better the 
conditions described in these pages. The story 
here told is, of necessity, somewhat sombre. 
But let no one be discouraged. An enemy in 
plain sight is more easily met and vanquished 
than one in ambush. A mistake seen, may be 
corrected. 

In the early days of the South African war, 
a telegram came across the wires from be- 



12 UNDER OUR FLAG 

leaguered Ladysmith, to this effect : " A civilian 
has just been sentenced by court-martial to a 
year's imprisonment for causing despondency." 
What had he done? Nothing, save to go along 
the lines of the brave defenders of the city and 
say discouraging things. That was all — but it 
was enough to make the sentence of the court- 
martial richly deserved. 

What is the outlook? Pilgrim, in Doubting 
Castle, says, " It is all dark. The Mormons are 
' lengthening their cords and strengthening their 
stakes.' The Negro problem is farther from 
solution than ever. Our great cities are sunk 
in iniquity. And, as if we had not enough 
burdens before, Alaska and Hawaii, Porto Rico 
and the Philippines have been added. We can 
touch but the outer fringes of the great pall of 
darkness and sin. Better fold our hands and let 
things drift." 

O Pilgrim, look from the windows! You 
have not even known that there were windows 
in Doubting Castle! But look now — out to- 
ward the east. See! the sun is rising, calm, 
clear and beautiful. It is the " Sun of Right- 
eousness," with healing in its beams. Mark how 
its rays chase the darkness away! See the mists 
and miasmas flee before their coming! O Pil- 
grim, the locks are broken, though you know it 
not. Come out from Doubting Castle, walk 
forth in God's free sunlight, and you will know 
that He has right of way in the world. 



II 

A RACE IN TRANSITION 

TO say that all Negro homes in the South 
are like those hereafter described would 
be unjust to a very large class of edu- 
cated, cultivated people of the Negro race. But 
since the object of this book is to show existent 
needs, it must present in the foreground of its 
picture the homes — of which, alas, there are 
abundant examples — that show the necessity of 
such an uplift as can come only from within, 
through the development and teaching of their 
inmates. 

It goes without saying that there are many 
Negro homes that compare favorably in cleanli- 
ness and attractiveness with the best American 
homes of similar class. Careful estimates indi- 
cate that, take the South as a whole, city and 
country, two per cent, of the homes of the colored 
race are of this kind — and the fact is one of pro- 
found encouragement, especially when it is re- 
membered that the results have been obtained, 
in the main, within the lifetime of a single gener- 
ation. But even the superficial glance of a pass- 
ing traveller in the Southland discovers much in 
the Negro settlements that is below the standard 
13 



14 UNDER OUR FLAG 

of the true American home. Lack of money is 
no more evident than lack of thrift. A tumbling 
shanty, with floor of loose boards — or no floor 
at all — outside chimney, no window save a square 
hole in the wall, and but one room for the eating, 
sleeping and living of the entire family, may be 
an abiding place — it can hardly be called a home. 

As a rule, the home-makers of the Southern 
Negroes are wage-earners, and while at work 
from morning until evening their offspring must 
care for themselves. They have, as a matter of 
course, but little opportunity for home-making, 
and it can hardly be a matter of surprise that in 
these small, one-room cabins the ordinary condi- 
tions of domestic life elsewhere are " conspicuous 
by their absence." The food is cooked over an 
open fire, and such a thing as sitting down to a 
table for a family meal is practically unknown. 
Each takes his portion and eats it on the door- 
step, or wherever is most convenient. Clean, 
white tablecloths, napkins, even knives and forks, 
are a distinct revelation to the girl going from 
such a dwelling to an industrial Home. And her 
shyness and awkwardness are so great that for 
some time it requires constant effort on the part 
of her teachers to ensure that she eats and sleeps 
in accordance with the customs of civilised life. 

What becomes of the sweet intimacies of fam- 
ily life under such conditions? What opportu- 
nity is there for the cultivation of taste in dress, 
or love of " the good, the true and the beauti- 



RACE IN TRANSITION 15 

ful " ? What dangers lurk in such conditions 
for the womanly instincts of modesty and pro- 
priety! How can there be development of " the 
strong upward tendencies " that are the birth- 
right of humanity, without distinction of race? 
What ideals can be cherished when dark corners 
and stale odors characterise the place, and the 
circus handbill is the chief teacher of decoration? 

The redeeming feature of country life under 
these conditions is God's free, glad outdoors. 
There are trees and flowers and fields, and sun- 
shine and air. And yet the yards of these cabins, 
even if set off by rickety fences, are either hard 
and bare, or filled with weeds. If he is a bene- 
factor who makes two blades of grass to grow 
where but one grew before, what shall be said of 
her who teaches that grass and flowers can green 
and blossom where none have been seen, or even 
dreamed of? 

Such conditions are bad enough in the coun- 
try. But when they exist in the heart of a city, 
then is the region a slum, indeed. 

The characteristic basis of city life among the 
Negroes of the South is the alley. Opening on 
this, and between better houses — often a con- 
traction, in reality, of their backyard space — 
stand tinv dwellings, of one room or two, lack- 
ing ceiling and plastering, windows and paint — 
simply boxes on the ground, or perched on 
wooden or brick pillars, without cellar or foun- 
dation. These habitations are crowded together 



16 UNDER OUR FLAG 

in groups, water being obtained from wells com- 
mon to the community and easily contaminated 
by sewage. Sewer connections are seldom made. 

Such physical conditions are bad enough, and 
leave no room for wonder at the high death-rate 
among the Negroes of the South. But their 
chief importance, after all, is their effect on the 
mental and moral possibilities. The one-room 
house is the primitive and original form of the 
home, as illustrated by the wigwam of the In- 
dian and the topek of the Eskimo. It is by no 
means peculiar to the Negroes. As a residence 
for two — husband and wife — it may be made 
fairly comfortable and respectable. But fill it with 
children of differing ages, and it becomes a dan- 
ger-spot in the community. The resultant herd- 
ing — no other word expresses it — makes all home 
decency and courtesy and elevation almost an 
impossibility. 

Another danger to be recognised is the fact 
that the " best Negro settlements are never free 
from the intrusion of the worst class of whites.'*' 
The paths of girlhood and young womanhood 
among this people are set with traps and snares 
undreamed of by their more fortunate sisters. 

But there is a second danger, inherent, per- 
haps, in the make-up of mankind, but developed 
by circumstances among the Negroes, of the 
South to an unusual degree. 

4 * Get leave to work 
In this world— 'tis the best you get at all," 



RACE IN TRANSITION 17 

sings Mrs. Browning. In the vocabulary of the 
Negro race, especially under the warm sunshine 
of the South, this has been too often rendered, 
" Get away from work in this world just as far as 
you can." 

The effect of this on the home can easily be 
imagined. With little work and, in con- 
sequence, little money in the hands of the head 
of the household, there is little to do with and 
still less for improvements in methods, even if 
the desire for them existed. There has come, 
also, as the product of various causes, a half- 
scorn for work and workers, and hence it is true 
that one of the imperative lessons for the colored 
race is the nobility of work — of work for work's 
sake, of honest, downright, hard work, of pride 
in doing it well and of satisfaction in its results 
that can be obtained in no other way. 

" Lazy " is not always the correct adjective 
to apply to man or woman, however much cir- 
cumstances may suggest it. Experience abun- 
dantly proves that lack of stimulus, ambition 
stifled at its birth, confining environments, often 
lead to that which seems like laziness to mere 
observers. But it is noticeable that Negro boys 
trained in certain schools in the South are in 
demand as farm laborers because they " do a 
full day's work." Only by such training can 
labor be " lifted up out of toil and drudgery into 
that which is dignified and beautiful." 

" The Negro needs," writes Mr. Booker T. 



18 UNDER OUR FLAG 

Washington, " knowledge that is harnessed." A 
sense of proportions, of values, is none the less 
necessary. " One of the saddest sights I ever 
saw," writes again this clear-sighted Afro-Ameri- 
can, " was the placing of a $300 rosewood piano 
in a country school in the Black Belt. Four- 
fifths of the people in the community owned no 
land, many lived in rented one-room cabins, 
many were in debt for food supplies, many 
mortgaged their crops for the food on which to 
live, and not one had a bank account. After 
the home and the necessaries of life were sup- 
plied, could come the piano. One piano in a 
home of one's own is worth twenty in a log 
cabin. The music lessons in school were all 
right, but should have been deferred about 
twenty-five years." 

A writer from the Black Belt of Alabama, a 
section where the proportion of Negroes to 
whites is twenty-seven to one, says : " The stand- 
ard pf morality is low; human life is cheap, and 
crime is common. The families are handicapped 
by the crop-mortgage system, through which 
* de lender owns de borrower, wife an' chillun, 
an' all dey raise/ " With interest on such loans 
ranging anywhere from fifteen to forty per cent., 
what chance can there be to " get ahead " ? 

According to the census of 1900, ten Southern 
States having 25 per cent, of the school popula- 
tion of this country own only 4 per cent, of the 
public school property, and expend only 6 1-2 



RACE IN TRANSITION 19 

per cent, of the public school moneys. As 
an inevitable result, illiteracy, with all its 
evils and dangers, follows. The annual per 
capita expenditure for public schools in Mas- 
sachusetts is $4.93; in the country, as a whole, 
$2.83. In Alabama it is fifty cents, and in North 
Carolina, fifty-one. 

Mr. Washington is authority for the statement 
that there is one whole county in the South 
where the State or school authorities do not own 
a single dollar's worth of school property, and 
where not a school has a blackboard or a piece of 
crayon. " And yet," he adds, " a vote in this 
county means as much to the nation as a vote 
in the city of Boston." 

The last census shows that more than half 
of the Negro population of Georgia, South Caro- 
lina, Alabama and Louisiana is illiterate. Tak- 
ing out the few, comparatively, in the educa- 
tional centres of those States, the intelligence, as 
a whole, is hardly more than it was fifty years 
ago. To realise what this means it is well to 
remember that in 1880 there were 3,950,000 
Negroes in the United States. To-day they 
number some ten millions, or nearly twice as 
many as the entire population of the Dominion 
of Canada. 

The deficiency in school facilities affects the 
white as well as the colored race, as shown in the 
next chapter. Tuskegee, Hampton, Carlisle, Cal- 
houn and similar schools are doing splendid 



20 UNDER OUR FLAG 

service; the public schools are all that their con- 
ditions permit. But all of these cannot do all 
that must be done. Woman's touch is needed 
for the Negro womanhood and girlhood of the 
South, and this, the initial field of most of the 
Woman's Home Missionary societies, still de- 
mands time and means and effort. " To get the 
children is to get the older people. Moreover, 
the school door once open is the open door to the 
entire community life." 

The instinctive thought when facing such 
destitution, is of blame for the municipality, the 
county, the State, in which such conditions are 
possible. But the " sober second thought," con- 
sidering the difficulties that have already been 
overcome, the poverty and bankruptcy that fol- 
lowed the Civil War, together with the racial 
problems that pressed with such tremendous 
force upon the people and the S'tate, realises 
that much, very much, has been done by the 
South itself for the education of its citizens, black 
and white alike. And more is planned, and 
will be carried out. " Rome was not built in a 
day." All honor to those who have laid the 
foundation on which, in the not distant future, 
will rise the fair superstructure of a full public 
school education for all the children of the State. 

Given a condition of need, physical, mental 
and spiritual, how shall it be met? "The grace 
of God is the great panacea for all human needs," 
says one, and we reverently accept the statement. 



RACE IN TRANSITION 21 

But how shall it be brought to bear upon these 
needs? Shall a missionary go into the heart of 
a city slum and preach Christ and His salvation 
from sin — and do nothing else? 

Nay, not so does God work His miracles of re- 
generation. With the gospel of salvation from 
sin must be taught, through long and painful 
struggle, the other gospels of cleanliness, of 
work, of brain-culture — these as well as soul- 
saving. And for this teaching, the law as well 
as the gospel, public sentiment as well as re- 
ligious enthusiasm, must unite. Someone has 
said: " It is a pretty hard thing to make a good 
Christian out of a hungry man." It is equally 
true of a lazy man, to say nothing of an igno- 
rant one. 

Such training must be given as to equip the 
average child for the place he is likely to occupy 
in after life, and to prepare the way for future 
advancement in obviously exceptional cases. 
And this must be so done that there shall not 
only be no tendency, but no desire, to revert to 
former conditions when away from the school 
influence. 

ILLUSTRATIVE QUOTATIONS 

From Booker T. Washington 

What the [Negro] race accomplishes in these 

first fifty years of its freedom will at the end of 

these years in a large measure constitute its past. 

It is, indeed, a responsibility that rests upon this 



22 UNDER OUR FLAG 

nation — the foundation-laying for a people, of its 
past, present and future, at one and the same 
time. 

The millions of colored people in the South 
cannot be reached directly by any missionary 
agent, but they can be reached by sending out 
among them strong, selected young men and 
women with the proposed training of head and 
hand and heart, who will live among them and 
show them how to lift themselves up. 

Out of the Negro colleges and industrial 
schools of the South there are going forth each 
year thousands of young men and women into 
dark and secluded corners, into lonely log 
schoolhouses, amidst poverty and ignorance ; and 
when they go forth no drums beat, no banners 
fly, no friends cheer, yet they are fighting the 
battles of this country as bravely and truly as 
those who go forth to do battle against a foreign 
enemy. 

From " The Southern Workman " 
We as Negroes must recognise that the main 
tendencies among us are toward bad homes, bad 
houses, bad family customs, and that, therefore, 
we must put forth especial effort among our- 
selves and our neighbors to guard against care- 
lessness, and to insure progress in home build- 
ing. Each one of us must strive to occupy a 
model home which shall inspire our neighbors. 



RACE IN TRANSITION 23 

Secondly, we must recognise that a large part 
of the Negro death-rate is due to poor houses 
and poor home customs. Here is the place to 
begin, then, to improve health. 

Thirdly, if it is difficult to develop good minds 
in poor bodies, it is just as hard to instil morals 
in one-room cabins or in bad houses anywhere. 
The first step toward good family life is made in 
building a suitable house. 

Ability to read and write is only a single fea- 
ture of the true education. A training is required 
that will make the man a man and the woman a 
woman of the best type, resolute for any task and 
competent for all required duties. 

There has been current a great deal of talk 
about the needs of practical education for black 
children. They need, above all, tJworctical train- 
ing. They need to realise what a home ought 
to be, what it ought to stand for, what the in- 
stitution of the family means in human develop- 
ment. . . . The untouched masses of the black 
South should be set to thinking and to wish- 
ing. 

Political economists, thinking only of dollars 
and cents, complain that the results of mission- 
ary effort are not commensurate with the outlay. 
" They tell us," said the late Professor Max Mul- 
ler, " that every convert (in foreign missions) 
costs us £200, and that at the present rate of 



24 UNDER OUR FLAG 

progress it would take more than 200,000 years 
to evangelise the world. There is nothing at all 
startling in these figures. Every child born in 
Europe is as much a heathen as the child of a 
Melenesian cannibal, and it costs us more than 
£200 to turn a child into a Christian man. 

" The other calculation is totally erroneous, 
for an intellectual harvest must not be calculated 
by adding simply grain to grain, but by counting 
each grain as a living seed, that brings forth 
fruit a hundred and a thousand fold." 

The following table of illiteracy in the colored 
population of various States, including those ten 
years old and over, deserves careful considera- 
tion: 

Connecticut 11. 8 

Massachusetts — 12.4 

New York 12.8 

Pennsylvania 15.3 

New Jersey 17.5 

Ohio 17.9 

Illinois 18.2 

Indiana , 22.6 

District of Columbia 24.2 

Missouri ... 28.0 

West Virginia 32.3 

Maryland 35.2 

Delaware 38.1 

Texas 38.2 

Florida 38.5 

Kentucky 40.1 

Tennessee 41.6 

Arkansas 43.0 



RACE IN TRANSITION 25 

Virginia 44.6 

North Carolina 47.6 

Mississippi 49.1 

Georgia 52.3 

South Carolina 52.8 

Alabama 57.4 

Louisiana 61. 1 

HINTS AND TOKENS 
An old colored man, looking out from the 
vantage-ground of experience upon the new pos- 
sibilities for his race, exclaimed in pitiful help- 
lessness: "Oh, I do want to do something 
for my wife and children, but I do not know 
how. I do not know what to do." 

A colored girl, trained in a Home Missionary 
school in Texas, cried exultantly: " I've learned 
right smart. I've learned to save. I'll be the 
savingest one in the family when I go home." 
We smile at the characteristic idioms, but there 
is deep significance in the words. 

From one school the teacher writes that two 
of the boys walked from their homes, fifty miles 
away, for the sake of coming. Another boards 
himself on bread and water. Still other boys, 
anxious to " learn the book," walk some five 
miles each way daily, their only luncheon being 
corn bread and roadside berries. Some of the 
girls made their coming possible by picking 
cotton in the fields at the rate of thirty-three and a 
half cents per thousand pounds. 



UNDER OUR FLAG 

— had given so much trouble that finally 



I told him he must go home. He left, but came 
back in a day or two for his trunk. Some of the 
Christian boys of the school took him into the 
chapel and had a prayer-meeting, seemingly 
without effect, praying especially for him. But 
he could not get away from the prayers. In 
three or four days he came back with the joyful 
news that he had found the Saviour. He said 
he wanted to come and confess Christ, even if I 
would not take him back into the school. But 
I was glad to restore him, for he is a changed boy, 
and will give us no more trouble." — Letter from 
a mission school. 

Said a white-haired old Negro to a missionary 
teacher: "Ma'am, it cuts me to the heart to 
think I have to make my mark. If you don't 
think I'm too old, I want to come and learn to 
write my name." And come he did, bending pa- 
tiently over the strange characters, his toilworn 
hands painfully grasping the unaccustomed pen, 
but the joy of progress in his soul. 

" If a reading-room is needed anywhere in the 
world, it is in the South among the colored 
people, where they do not have access to Chris- 
tian books and papers. There are numerous 
grog-shops, the lowest progeny of the saloon, 
the social clubroom where the boys learn to 
smoke, to use profane language and gamble, 



RACE IN TRANSITION 27 

where they hear vile stories and see lewd pic- 
tures. These are some of the perils, some of the 
vices, by which the young people are daily sur- 
rounded, and these are the only resorts to which 
they can go and feel welcome." 

Her father brought Mary Jane to the school. 
She wore a cotton dress, bright red in spots, 
through some peculiar method of dyeing. It 
reached her shoe-tops in front, and touched the 
floor in a point in the back. The trimming was 
coarse pillow-lace around the low, collarless neck. 
Her rusty, brown hat had a single red feather 
stuck up in front, in what she supposed was ex- 
actly the right angle for the prevailing fashion, 
and her tight-braided hair was tied with cotton 
strings. 

The teacher handed the new-comer to the care 
of girls of her own age for a short time. An 
hour later she hardly knew her. Deftly, tact- 
fully, the girls had rearranged her hair and dress 
till she actually looked like themselves. A 
month later, at Christmas time, her father came 
to take her home for the vacation, and his sur- 
prise was unbounded. " I never'd a knowed you, 
chile. You'se mighty changed." 

" The best workers," writes the principal of a 
school for Negro young men and women, " those 
who have taken the full school course, are needed 
right in the home field. The pastors of the 



28 UNDER OUR FLAG 

churches depend on them more than on their 
elders; they are the hope of a better state of 
things in the public schools; in all missionary 
and reform work they are the recognised lead- 
ers." 

" Mother, don't be uneasy 'bout I in studying, 
because I'm doing my best, and you know when 
I was going to school at home I always did try 
to know my lessons perfect when I went to my 
class, so you know I am most compel to study 
hard here, being with so many girls that are 
trying with all their might to know their lessons 
perfect. ... I haven't cause any my teachers 
any trouble since I been here, none of them has 
never had to speak to me 'bout talking or doing 
anything wrong because I'm very careful in try- 
ing not to break any of the rules. ... It was 
encouraging to know that you expect me to do 
something. With God to help me, you shall 
not be disappointed." — From a school- girl 's letter. 

He was twenty-three years old — a gaunt, over- 
grown boy — applying for admission to a school. 
" I wants learnin'," was his introduction. 

" How far have you studied? " asked the prin- 
cipal. 

" Nowhere in yourn's books." 

" Can you read? " 

" Not in them books you's got." 



RACE IN TRANSITION 29 

" Well, how are you off for means? " 

" I isn't mean at all." 

"I mean, have you any money?" 

" Yes, I have two dollars, an' I wants to 
work." 

" We have no work we can give you just 
now." 

" That's powerful funny. I sees lots of work 
that isn't did about here." 

" Yes? What do you see? " 

"Them cobwebs needs to be took down; that 
stuff ought to be toted away, an' lots of things 
is to be did here that them boys there hasn't 
did." 

" Well, if I take you into school, will you do 
what these boys have not had time to do, and 
study your lessons, too?" 

" Yes, I will, for I has jest come to work an' 
larn." 

" How are you off for clothes? " 

" I has these pants you see, an' I can buy this 
coat I have on for a dollar. These shoes is mine, 
an' I has my working clothes." 

What missionary teacher could resist such a 
plea, even although the school was already filled 
beyond the capacity, not only of space, but of 
funds? The bov was taken, remaining four years, 
and then going out, a good scholar, trained in 
handicraft as well as in books, to teach among 
his own home people who " thought there was no 



30 UNDER OUR FLAG 

need of school," and thus to form another centre 
of uplift and hope. 

MEMORY TEST 

What is involved in the uplifting of homes? 

Describe the majority of Negro homes in the 
country; in the city. 

Describe the dangers to home life of the one- 
room cabins. 

Why is the lesson of the nobility of work 
especially important to the colored race? 

What does Mr. Washington say of music les- 
sons and pianos among the Negroes? 

What is the average per capita expenditure for 
public schools in Massachusetts? In the country 
as a whole? In Alabama? In North Caro- 
lina? 

How many Negroes are there in the country 
to-day? 

What per cent, of these in the South are il- 
literate? 

What is the South doing to better these con- 
ditions? 

Why are missionary societies of women needed 
in solving these problems? 

What does Mr. Washington consider the best 
plan for the uplifting of the Negro race? 

What is the Divine plan for human help in the 
redemption of the world ? 

Why do the Negroes of the South need both 
practical and theoretical training? 



RACE IN TRANSITION 31 

Give incidents illustrating the success of such 
training. 

BIBLE LESSON 

Home Missionary Readings 

"What shall I read?" It is a frequent ques- 
tion from those called upon to conduct the open- 
ing service at a Home Missionary meeting. 
True, one can hardly go amiss, since the Bible 
is a missionary book from cover to cover, but the 
value of a service is distinctly increased by the 
reading of Scripture especially appropriate to the 
theme. 

The following selections are given as illustra- 
tive of many that may be made: 

Encouragement for Work in Desolate Places. 
Isa. 35. 

The Command and the Promise. Luke 24: 
45-47; Isa. 33: 20-24; 62: 1-7; 40: 28-31. 

The Call for Workers. Isa. 62: 10-12; John 
4: 35-36. 

Two Home Missionaries. (Selections from 
the books of Esther and Nehemiah.) 

HYMN FOR HOME MISSIONS. 

(TUNE— 4 ' Sun of my Soul.") 
Land of our love, thy daughters meet 
In love and worship at the feet 
Of Christ, the Lord of lands, to claim 
Redemption for thee in His name. 

The ceaseless tide of human souls 
From either sea that o'er thee rolls, 



32 UNDER OUR FLAG 

Grows dark with ignorance and shame; 
We ask redemption in His name. 

Thy simple children of the sun. 
From bitter bonds so dearly won, 
Stretch forth their hands with us, and claim 
A new redemption in His name. 

For homes of poverty and woe, 
Where love upon the hearth burns low; 
For holy childhood, born to shame, 
We ask redemption in His name. 

Lord over all, as through the years 
We plant with joy, or sow with tears, 
Help us to serve, 'mid praise or blame, 
" For love of Christ, and in His name! " 

Mary A. Lathbury. 



Ill 

IN THE SOUTHERN HIGHLANDS 

" Tk MOUNTAINEERS are always free- 

|%/l men," is the proud motto of West 

■L ▼ -m. Virginia. The " Hymn of the Vau- 

dois Mountaineers " is the Magna Charta of all 

dwellers on the heights : 

" For the strength of the hills we bless Thee, 

Our God, our fathers' God. 
Thou hast made Thy children mighty 

By the touch of the mountain sod. 
Thou hast fixed our ark of refuge 

Where the spoiler's foot ne'er trod. 
For the strength of the hills we bless Thee, ) 

Our God, our fathers' God." 

" I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from 
whence cometh my help," sang Israel's Psalmist. 
In a very practical sense, " the people of tired 
cities " have learned within a few years that there 
are " help " and strength in the mountain regions 
of the South, and the tides of travel set that way 
with steadily increasing force. 

But health-seekers and pleasure-seekers find 
that Christian life and civilisation have preceded 
them into the heart of the Blue Ridge and the 
33 



34 UNDER OUR FLAG 

Alleghanies, and the school and the church have 
the right of pioneers in the land. 

The mountain region of Virginia, Tennessee, 
North Carolina, Georgia and Alabama has a 
population, according to an eminent Southern 
writer, of about 2,000,000. " At least four-fifths 
of these," says the same writer, " will compare 
favorably in intelligence, morality and religion 
with any other population in the United States." 
There are several colleges of excellent standing 
in this section, some of which have passed the 
half-century, and even the century, mark. Its 
" scholars, orators, ministers, statesmen, have an 
almost passionate love for the region that gave 
them birth." 

For the condition of the other one-fifth of this 
mountain population, geographical limitations 
are largely responsible. Most of the people are 
the descendants of English Puritans, Scotch 
Covenanters, and French Huguenots. Here are 
"Colonial Dames," indeed; here are Sons and 
Daughters of the American Revolution, " un- 
recognised, but of none the less genuine line- 
age." These isolated mountaineers are of the 
best Anglo-Saxon stock, with the blood and tra- 
ditions of heroes, " the only portion of our popu- 
lation that retains pure and undefiled the Ameri- 
canism of colonial times." 

Men of these mountains fought with honor and 
distinction on both sides during the Civil War. 
At its close they returned to their homes, drop- 



SOUTHERN HIGHLANDS 35 

ping communication and contact with the out- 
side world, and for them the hands of the clock 
of Christendom and civilisation stood still. 

Poor they are, but self-reliant, the axe and rifle 
furnishing their monotonous support. The loom 
in the cabin home, the fireplace for cooking — 
sometimes the still hidden in the woods for illicit 
whiskey-making — supply their modest wants. 

In the Southern mountains, as elsewhere, the 
homes are an index of conditions and needs. And 
here, too, as everywhere else, it goes without 
saying that there are good homes, comfortable, 
cultured homes, homes of college graduates and 
people of refinement equal to the best in the 
land. It is not necessary to picture these, but 
others must be shown in any adequate presenta- 
tion of the country's needs. They are not unlike 
homes elsewhere, North and South, with the ex- 
ception that a greater degree of geographical 
isolation has placed its inevitable stamp upon 
them. Dark, one-room cabins in the midst of 
bare, uncultivated land, with scant furniture, and 
that mostly home-made, will be rapidly replaced 
by better things when the sons and daughters 
of these homes, returning from school, bring 
with them the lessons there received in home- 
keeping, garden-making, cooking, quickness of 
brain to plan, and deftness of hand to execute. 

All the needs of the home are not revealed 
by its walls and furnishings. When the mother 
in the mountains, shut away from the blessed op- 



36 UNDER OUR FLAG 

portunities given to so many of her sisters, en- 
ters the valley of the shadow that a new life may 
come into the world, how pitiful is the lack of 
educated care and skill! The Rachel of the 
mountains weeps as bitterly over the death of 
her first-born as the mothers in more fortunate 
homes — and with the added pang that if better 
knowledge had been hers, or better medical skill 
obtainable, the sorrow need not have been. 

The preaching of the gospel of work is de- 
manded here, as elsewhere. Too often potatoes 
are dug only when wanted, in a happy-go-lucky, 
hand-to-mouth fashion; wood from the unshel- 
tered pile is split for the preparation of each 
meal as it comes, and cotton and corn go un- 
gathered until convenience serves, with little re- 
gard to the resultant effects upon the crops, or 
the pocket-book or larder. 

Another and a more serious danger threatens 
the girlhood and womanhood of these homes. 
Mormon elders, wolves in sheep's clothing, tra- 
verse the mountains, " seeking whom they may 
devour." 

" Have you any church here? " asked a 
traveller in one of the most inaccessible parts 
of the Alleghanies. 

" Yes," was the reply. " Just round the corner 
of that hill you'll find a church." 

Into those mountain fastnesses the Mormon 
missionary had penetrated, establishing there a 
" church " of the Latter-Day Saints, poisoning 



SOUTHERN HIGHLANDS 37 

the minds of the people, and luring them to leave 
" the strength of the hills " for the pollution and 
moral degradation of Utah. These men are sap- 
pers and miners in the army of him who is ever 
and always the enemy of Christ and the church. 
Slowly, skilfully, they are undermining our heri- 
tage of Christian liberty and true civilisation. 
When will churchmen and statesmen awake to 
the danger? 

" The great difficulty in the way of improve- 
ment," says Bishop E. E. Hoss of the Methodist 
Episcopal Church South, " is poverty. Much of 
the soil is very poor, and yields only a scant re- 
turn to labor. ... In many instances the peo- 
ple have given up hope, and do not look for any- 
thing better than they have known." 

A writer in a missionary magazine gives a 
vivid picture of conditions in this region: 

" A visit to the Southern mountain field meant 
early morning starts and journeyings over un- 
speakable, washed-out roads, through gorgeous 
autumn woods, into dim, brook-threaded coves, 
past rustic sorghum boilers and primitive mills, 
into the deep silence of the mountains sug- 
gestive of mystery and danger that the sight of 
an occasional mountaineer with his rifle quickens 
and enhances — then suddenly the open valley 
and the schoolhouse crowded with mountain 
boys and girls." 

Prominent among the mountain problems of 
the South stands the need of more schools, and 



38 UNDER OUR FLAG 

better ones, of schools for the training of hand 
and eye, as well as of the brain. Two months of 
study — perhaps in July and August, with in- 
different teachers — may be better than none, but 
it is far from being all that should be given to 
young Americans of the present day. " Why 
does not the State furnish good schools and good 
teachers, as a matter of self-protection?" There 
is one simple and complete answer to this and 
similar questions — the Southern States are poor. 
President Dabney, of the University of Tennes- 
see, is authority for the statement that the people 
of the South are doing as much per taxable dol- 
lar as are those of the North.* " The poverty of 
the South," says an editorial writer on a New 
York daily, " is the fundamental fact that ex- 
plains the brief school terms and the ill-com- 
pensated, inefficient teachers. We can scarcely 
be said to have solved the educational problem, 
even in New York City, in view of the failure 
of the schools to keep step with the increase of 
population, and it should occasion no surprise 
that the slender resources of the Southern States 
are found insufficient. Moreover, the ratio of 
children to adult males is surprisingly larger in 
the South than in the North; ioo to 51 in South 
Carolina, against 100 to 102 in New York." 
Child labor threatens to take from the chil- 

*The taxable property in Tennessee, for instance, 
for each child of school age is $327 ; in New York, 
$2,661. 



SOUTHERN HIGHLANDS 39 

dren of the South even the limited education 
provided by the State law. Only the strong arm 
of compulsory education, enforced by Christian 
beneficence, to furnish the needed opportunity, 
can avert the threatening danger. " If you save 
the child to-day you have saved the nation to- 
morrow," applies here as well as elsewhere. 
" The Star of Bethlehem " of more reforms than 
temperance " stands over the schoolhouse." 

It were easy to picture homes that would 
make the heart of Christian womanhood ache 
with unutterable sorrow and pity; schools that 
are little more than the name might be described 
in truthful detail; communities where the homely 
virtues that are a part of the Anglo-Saxon's 
birthright have been overgrown by lust and sin, 
are not unknown in the Southern mountains — 
or anywhere else on this broad continent of ours. 
But all that is required to show the absolute 
necessity of help from outside sources, given in 
the spirit of Christian love and brotherly kind- 
ness, can easily be imagined by those whose 
hearts are tuned to the cry of the helpless. The 
free-handed, open-hearted South, the fortunate, 
prosperous North — each must help, according to 
its ability, until the glad day dawn when " the 
mountain of the Lord's house shall be estab- 
lished in the top of the mountains." 

The line of progress in this section must be, 
in the main, from the Christian school to the 
Christian church, and then to the Christian home. 



40 UNDER OUR FLAG 

We cannot hope to see the beautiful Southland 
taking the position to which it is so royally en- 
titled without the Christianised, educated sup- 
port of these citizens of its ramparts. The 
country needs them. They are not anarchists, 
or adventurers, there are few foreign names 
among them. They are bone of our bone and 
flesh of our flesh, Americans " to the manner 
born," and they wait " upon the mountains " for 
" the feet of him that bringeth good tidings." 



IS IT WORTH WHILE ? 

" The cry for schools is so great and urgent 
that the hearts of the workers are constantly 
torn with longings to possess some magical 
power to grant these pleas." 

Students are eager to work out their tuition 
fees, and in one school in the Southern moun- 
tains forty were rejected in a recent fall term for 
lack of opportunity to do this. Is it any won- 
der that industrial schools are popular? 

A twelve-year old boy in North Carolina 
walked six miles to school in the morning and 
back again at night every school day all winter, 
save on the few rare occasions when the family 
mule could be spared for his use. 

"The new boys who have come to us this 



SOUTHERN HIGHLANDS 41 

term are for the most part larger boys, and some 
of them men grown in size, who can just read and 
write a little, and who, eager for an education, 
enter the first grade with the small boys." — 
From a Mountain Teacher. 

" I was afeared goin' down there to school 
might spoil Belvy and Gertrude; but it ain't, not 
a bit. They work every bit as good as they did, 
and they've learned to do a sight of things. 
Belvy, there, now, ain't been out of the corn- 
field one day since the school was out, early in 
June, and Gertie she just gets the meals right 
ahead. I tell you, I think a heap of that school." 
— Testimony of a Mountain Mother. 

" Every one of them missionary women has 
been just like a sister to me," said another 
mother. " When my poor little baby died, they 
came right in, and when we're sick they ain't 
afraid to help us, and they've told us about the 
blessed Jesus." 

" Money is scarce in the mountains. Even 
the school-child needing a pencil will bring an 
egg in exchange. A few days ago I found a 
woman and two children waiting on the porch. 
They had walked four miles. The mother had a 
chicken which she gave in payment of her sys- 
tematic offering pledge for the church, and a gal- 
lon of cherries to pay for a child's dress, while 



42 UNDER OUR FLAG 

the little five-year-old girl had brought some 
strawberries to buy herself an apron.'' — From a 
Southern Teacher. 

" The Southern mountaineers are probably the 
best people on earth as raw material ; their very 
vices lean to virtue's side. The stores of H. have 
broken windows with bits of thin board tacked 
in them that a ten-year-old boy could push out, 
yet no store is interfered with, though left from 
sunset to sunrise without a soul near; nobody ex- 
pects anything to be stolen. . . . These people 
believe in God and in the Bible — some may know 
little and care less about them, but way down in 
their hearts they firmly believe." — From Home 
Mission Monthly. 

" The mountaineers have been reduced to their 
present condition of poverty and ignorance by 
the strenuous conditions under which they have 
been compelled to live. No one who has never 
himself experienced those conditions can realise 
how terrible is their effect upon the individual 
life, or how great their effect must be upon the 
life of a family from generation to generation. 
To live on the mountainside, and, perhaps, in 
the depths of a forest, without roads, without 
means of transportation, on such products as the 
soil outside the cabin door provides, and in a 
climate of great severity, will tell upon any man 
or woman, or family, or stock, however fine its 
origin." — Rev. W. S\ Pltmier Bryan, 



SOUTHERN HIGHLANDS 43 

" The Highlands were so sparsely settled as to 
make it almost impossible to perpetuate the in- 
herited institutions, the school and the church. 
The few books the first settlers brought with 
them were lost or torn to pieces by the young 
children, and a mental and spiritual famine has 
been the natural sequence, the minds and souls 
of each generation becoming more and more 
anaemic for lack of nourishment." 

Back in the mountains, a forty-mile ride on 
muleback from the nearest railroad station, is a 
" Settlement " school. Many of its pupils walk 
four miles and back daily over the rough moun- 
tain paths for the sake of attending the school, 
and the numbers are twice as many as the room 
was intended to accommodate, four sitting on 
seats meant only for two. Only teachers who 
know what such crowding would mean under 
more favorable conditions, in the way of dis- 
order and lack of discipline, can fully appreci- 
ate the spur of necessity that makes the children 
eager for this opportunity. 

From an isolated mountain section came the 
call for a teacher. Those in charge of the mis- 
sion school receiving the appeal carefully se- 
lected the one they deemed best adapted to the 
pioneer work, and sent her forward with their 
blessings and prayers. She found a house with 
some rude benches and sixty children awaiting 



44 UNDER OUR FLAG 

her — and that was all. No text-books, black- 
boards, desks, no school supplies of any descrip- 
tion, but human lives to be moulded and shaped 
for time and for eternity. Bravely she took up 
the work, and none the less bravely was she met 
by her pupils. What mattered it that they had 
to kneel on the floor and use the benches to 
write on — it was a chance to learn, and learn they 
did. 

The first Sunday brought still other duties for 
the young worker. A Sunday-school must be 
held and church service maintained with uncer- 
tain help in the carrying on of either. In the 
" parish " of that young woman teacher to-day 
there are twelve hundred people unshepherded 
but for the care of this faithful, consecrated 
worker, who one day asked on her knees : " Lord, 
what wilt Thou have me to do ? " 

Their own words and deeds bear the best tes- 
timony to the longing for an education among 
the youth of this mountain region. The follow- 
ing incidents, rich in pathos and filled with the 
pluck that wins, are reported in the Christian En- 
deavor World: 

A young man entered a college office, and, 
touching the president's arm, asked in a peculiar 
mountain brogue, " Be ye the man who sells 
larnin'?" Before the president could reply, he 
asked again, " Look here, mister, do you uns 
run this here thing? " 



SOUTHERN HIGHLANDS 45 

The president replied, " Yes, when the thing 
is not running me. What can I do for 
you?" 

" Heaps," was the only reply. Then after a 
pause the lad said, "I has hearn that you uns 
educate poor boys here, and, being as I am poor, 
thought I'd come and see if 'twas so. Do 
ye?" 

The president replied that poor boys attended 
the college, but that it took money to provide 
for them, that they were expected to pay some- 
thing. The boy was greatly troubled. 

" Have you anything to pay for your food and 
lodging? " asked the president. 

" Yes, sir," was the reply, " I has a little 
spotted steer; and if you uns will let me, I'll stay 
wid you till I larn him up." 

Such persistence generally carries its point, 
and the lad remained, and the little steer lasted 
for years. The president's closing comment upon 
the incident is this: " I have had the pleasure 
of sitting in the pew while I listened to my boy, 
now a young man, as he preached the glad tid- 
ings of salvation. Does it pay to help such 
boys? " 

The other incident is even more pathetic. A 
young boy applied for admission to the college. 
He had been prepared by a former student, and 
was able to enter the freshman class. He 
brought with him a supply of provisions, rented 
a room, and did his own cooking. For months 



46 UNDER OUR FLAG 

he worked and studied, making rapid progress. 
One day the president met him, and found that 
he was greatly distressed. 

As soon as he could control himself, he said, 
" I must go home; it is time to be at work with 
the crop, it has rained so much, and I am 
needed." 

The president reasoned with him, and tried to 
show him the folly of giving up his studies at 
that time. 

He broke down completely, and, sobbing as if 
his heart were broken, said: "I can't study; 
when I take up my book, I see on every page my 
mother with a hoe in her hand, working like a 
slave to keep me in school. I'd rather not be 
educated than be compelled to look at that pic- 
ture." 

In all probability the boy had written home, 
stating that he expected to leave college that 
day, for at this juncture the mother appeared. 

Mother-fashion she drew him into her arms, 
and said, " Davy, my boy, would you break 
mammy's heart? Stay! Mammy will work for 
her baby, and will never stop until you say, 
' Mammy, here is my 'ploma.' " 

A friend called to see the parents of Dave at 
their humble mountain home. It was the month 
of July, and the mother was cooking at the fire- 
place. 

" Mrs. Green, you ought to have a cooking- 
stove," was the comment of the visitor. 



SOUTHERN HIGHLANDS 47 

" I had one, but I put it in Davy's head," was 
the only reply. 

That mother had sold the stove in order to 
keep her boy at school. She cannot read, but 
she was determined that her boy should have an 
education. At his graduation she was happier 
than a queen, for she saw her boy receive his 
diploma, and also carry off second honors in 
his class. 

I think that it must somewhere be written, 
" Blessed are the mothers who make a way for 
their boys to ascend, for their reward is great 
both here and hereafter." 

FACTS AND FIGURES* 

"The census of 1900 showed a population in the 
States south of the Potomac and east of the 
Mississippi of 10,400,000 white and 6,000,000 
black. 

"In these States there were 3, 98 1,000 white and 
2,420,000 colored children of school age (five to 
twenty years), a total of 6,401,000. The school 
enrolment in 1900 was 60 per cent, of the en- 
tire number, and the school attendance 70 per 
cent of the enrolment. One-half of the colored 
and one-fifth of the white children receive no 
schooling whatever. 

* The Civil War, prostrating the South and destroy- 
ing its institutions, caused a great temporary increase 
of illiteracy — a condition from which the section is rally- 
ing quite as rapidly, perhaps, as could be expected. 



48 UNDER OUR FLAG 

" The average child, whites and blacks to- 
gether, who attends school at all, stops with the 
third grade. This means that the average citizen 
in the South gets only three years of schooling in 
his whole life. 



AVERAGES, 
Years in Value school Salary of Days in Amt. ex; 





school 


property 


teacher 


sch. year per pu 


n. a, 


2.6 


$180 


$23.36 


70.8 $4.34 


s. a, 


2.5 


178 


23.20 


88.4 4.44 


Ala., 


24 


212 


27.50 


78.3 3.IO 


Ga., 




523 


27.OO 


II2.0 6.64 



s- 



" In other words, in these States, in school- 
houses costing an average of $276 each, under 
teachers receiving the average salary of $25 a 
month, we are giving the children in actual at- 
tendance five cents' worth of schooling a day 
for eighty-seven days in the year! 

" In 1900 the percentage of illiterates among 
males over twenty-one — native whites, the sons 
of native parents — was in Virginia 12.5; in 
North Carolina, 19; in South Carolina, 12.6; in 
Georgia, 12. 1; in Alabama, 14.2; in Tennessee, 
14.5; in Kentucky, 15.5. These are grown white 
men, descendants of the original Southern stock. 
In Mississippi there is a marked difference, the 
percentage of illiteracy being only 8.3, directly 
traceable to their better schools, established some 
twelve years ago." — President Charles W. Dab- 
ney, of the University of Tennessee, in an address 
on " A National Problem." 



SOUTHERN HIGHLANDS 49 

A PRESENT-DAY PERIL 

" Next to Massachusetts, South Carolina 
manufactures more cotton cloth than any other 
State in the Union, and the cotton mills of South 
Carolina are mostly owned and operated by New 
England capital. 

" The infant factory slaves can never develop 
into men and women. Boys and girls from the 
age of six years and upwards are employed. 
They usually work from six in the morning until 
seven at night. For four months of the year 
they go to work before daylight and work until 
after dark. 

" At noon I saw them sit on the floor devour- 
ing their food, then topple over in sleep, in all 
the abandon of babyhood. When it came time 
to go to work, the foreman marched through 
the groups, shaking the sleepers and shouting 
in their ears. The long afternoon had begun, 
and from a quarter to one until seven they 
worked without respite. They watched the fly- 
ing spindles on a frame twenty feet long, and 
tied the broken threads; they could not sit at 
their tasks, but paced back and forth. The roar 
of the machinery drowned every sound, the noise 
and the constant looking at the wheel reduces 
in a few months nervous sensation to the mini- 
mum. The child no more longs for the com- 
panionship of all the wild, free things that run, 
fly, climb, or swim. Children seven or eight 



50 UNDER OUR FLAG 

who have worked in the mills a year lose the 
capacity to play, and the child who cannot play, 
cannot learn. When you have robbed a child of 
its play-time you have robbed it of its life." 

The quotation calls attention to one of the 
most serious problems now facing the states- 
men of the South, a problem complicated, alas, 
by the fact that the cotton mills so rapidly being 
placed near the cotton fields, are largely financed 
with Northern money. Shame on Northern mill- 
owners who, forbidden by law to employ child- 
labor at home, adopt it in the States where but 
inadequate laws exist for the protection of child- 
hood! 

Mrs. Browning's pitiful " Cry of the Children " 
finds sorrowful parallel in our day and genera- 
tion, and a later poet voices the pathos and wrong 
of it all in " The Children of the Mills " : 

They no longer shout and gambol in the blossom-laden 
fields, 
And their laughter does not echo down the street. 
They have gone across the hills ; they are working in 
the mills, 
Oh, the tired little hands and aching feet! 
And the weary, dreary life that stunts and kills! 
Oh, the roaring of the mills, of the mills! 

All the pleasures known to childhood are but tales of 

fairy-land. 
^ What to them are singing birds and rushing streams? 
For the rumble of the rill seems an echo of the mill, 
And they see but flying spindles in their dreams. 



SOUTHERN HIGHLANDS 51 

In this boasted land of freedom they are bonded baby 
slaves, 
And the busy world goes by and does not heed. 
They are driven to the mill just to glut and over-fill 

Bursting coffers of the mighty monarch, Greed. 
When they perish we are told it is God's will. 
Oh, the roaring of the mill, of the mill / 

— Ella Wheeler Wilcox. 

As a matter of course, the womanhood of the 
South is aroused on this vital subject, and is 
calling the attention of legislators to the matter 
with no uncertain voice. But the passage of 
laws forbidding child-labor must be accompanied 
by such changes in the school laws as will make 
it not only possible, but obligatory, for every 
child, white or black, to have a reasonable 
amount of schooling each year. As matters now 
stand, the Negro child has the advantage in the 
cotton-mill regions, owing to the general exclu- 
sion of Negro labor from the factories. " While 
the white child goes to the factory," says a 
Georgia senator, " the black child goes to 
school." 

A MOUNTAIN JOURNEY 

" Perhaps you would like to know how I went 
to see about my school. Mounted on a horse, 
with a fresh waist or two tucked in a genuine 
pair of saddle pockets, I started alone on a 
thirty-mile trip. The first afternoon I rode only 
five miles, and stopped with friends. Next morn- 
ing early, with my lunch and corn for my horse 



52 UNDER OUR FLAG 

in a sack, added to my luggage, I started down 
the mountains. 

" Down, down, we went, by the side of a dash- 
ing little creek, between two and three thou- 
sand feet to the river; then along the river, and 
up another little creek, through forests and over 
the creek bed, walking mostly in rocks, where it 
seemed almost impossible for the horse to go — 
of course walking and leading the horse, till we 
came to the side of another mountain ridge. 

" Here Molly and I ate our corn and biscuits 
and rested. Then up, up, up, we clambered, 
hot and tired, to the top. Then down the rocky 
way several miles, till we began to reach human 
habitations again. At about six o'clock we 
reached our stopping-place. Next morning I 
rode on six miles farther, fording creeks, and 
threading bridle paths. 

" On the return I hitched my horse to a 
friend's buggy, tying the saddle on behind, and 
we went six miles to the head of the creek, con- 
stantly going in the creek-bed, over rocks and 
into holes that it seemed must tear the buggy 
up and ruin the horse. We found a comfortable 
staying-place for the night, and by sunrise the 
next morning we were climbing the mountain. 
At eight o'clock we reached the summit, nearly 
four thousand feet high. Then we went down, 
then up again to the four thousand feet level, 
reaching home about six p. m. I wondered how 
many teachers had such a trip to secure their 



SOUTHERN HIGHLANDS 53 

schools." — From a letter written by a North 
Carolina Teacher. 

MEMORY TEST 

Locate the mountain region of the South. 

What is the ancestry of its people? 

What physical conditions have interfered with 
progress in this section? 

Describe the cabin homes of mountaineers. 

What special dangers threaten the girlhood 
and womanhood of these homes? 

Describe the child-labor problem. 

Describe a mountain journey in this section. 

What is the usual length of the school year, 
and why is it not longer? 

Are schools appreciated by the mountaineers? 

BIBLE LESSON 
Christ in the Home 

In Childhood. 

Of noble ancestry — Matt. I : 17. 

Of lowly birth— Matt. 13: 55-56. 

His mother's familiarity with the Scriptures — 
Luke 1 : 46-55. 

His boyhood — Luke 2: 52. 
In Manhood. 

Honoring marriage — John 2 : 2. 

A neglected Guest — Luke 7 : 36, 44~46- 

An honored Guest— Luke 10:38-42; John 12: 

1-3. 



54 UNDER OUR FLAG 

A Sympathiser — Luke 7: 11-15. 

A Friend — John 11:5, 30-36. 

A Healer — Luke 4: 38-39. 

The Conqueror of death — Luke 7: 11-15; 8: 
49-56; John n: 43-44. 
Christ's Law of Marriage 

As regards divorce — Mark 10: 11. 

As regards polygamy — Matt. 5 : 27-30. 
The Home a place of 

Love and forgiveness — Luke 15:20. 

Shelter and care — John 19 : 2"]. 

Rejoicing — Luke 15:6. 
The Women of the Gospels 

Talked with Christ — John 4 : 2"]. 

Were His friends — Luke 10 : 38-39. 

Ministered to Him — Luke 8 : 2-3. 

Were first heralds of His resurrection — Luke 
24 : 10. 

For helpful suggestions see " Christ and the 
Home," in " Imago Christi." (Rev. James 
Stalker, D. D.) 

"THINE IS THE POWER'' 

(Tune— Hamburg.)l 
God of the mountain and the star, 
Of things anear and things afar, 
For all that human hands have wrought 
We praise Thee for the Master thought. 

Thine is the skill of tongue and pen, 
Thine is the will that works in men, 
Thine are the treasures of the deep, 
And thine the secrets earth doth keep. 



SOUTHERN HIGHLANDS 55 

God of the hills! Our hearts ascend 
To where Thy praises have no end. 
God of the valleys! O'er us rolls 
Thy tide of love for wandering souls. 

God speed our feet! Oh, may they be 

Glad messengers of love for Thee! 

Till hill and valley, near and far, 

Shall catch the gleam of Bethlehem's star. 

Take Thou our hearts, O God of power! 
We bring Thee love, our only dower. 
Though poor and mean the gift may be, 
Thy love can make it fit for Thee. 

—Alice M. Guernsey. 



IV 
ON THE OUTPOSTS 

FRONTIERS 

"^[ TT THAT is meant by a steerage passage ?" 

\f \f asked a teacher in the course of a 
reading lesson in which the phrase 
was used. 

" Going by ox-cart," promptly replied a wide- 
awake youngster. 

To many of us, " frontier " suggests something 
quite beyond our personal knowledge. Theo- 
retically, we understand that the whole country 
is threaded with railroad lines crossing moun- 
tains as well as plains, and annihilating time and 
distance. But there is a lingering fancy that 
somewhere in the mysterious " out West " there 
are still regions to be explored by " prairie 
schooners " and " steerage passengers " of the 
type suggested by the boy's reply. 

Nor, with the substitution of foot or horseback 
travel for the slow-moving teams that first 
crossed the Mississippi, are these fancies far out 
of the way, as the life of many a Home Mission- 
ary abundantly reveals. 

What are the conditions of this, the West that 
is not, as yet, the land of church spires and com- 
56 



ON THE OUTPOSTS 51 

fortable homes? For answer take these pictures 
of what it means to be a frontier minister: 

" To travel all day over hard roads when the 
winds blow cold from the icy waters of Lake 
Superior, or the snow and rain insert themselves 
inside your coat collar, while the hail and sleet 
bite and sting your face until it is almost un- 
bearable; to spend days in an unpainted, bleak- 
looking town, visiting from house to house in 
the heat and cold, perhaps 50 below zero, in 
the shine or rain or snow; to open the church 
(if there is one to open), to sweep and dust it, 
to fill and light the lamps, and in the frosts of 
winter to build the fires, and then to hold service 
and do the part of minister and choir — all these 
things are so commonplace that unless one has 
a deeper motive than desire for the sensational, 
he will soon tire of them and go back to the East, 
or to more settled conditions." 

A minister in northern Michigan drives his 
horse one hundred miles in one direction one 
week, and the next rides one hundred miles on 
the cars in another direction, to reach his various 
stations. We hear of a clergyman in South 
Dakota going from one end of his field to the 
other, to attend a funeral service — a horseback 
ride of eighty miles, and not an unusual experi- 
ence! 

" In Montana," says the New York Observer, 
" there are many places where there are no min- 
isters, and no means of grace. Appeal after ap- 



58 UNDER OUR FLAG 

peal comes often in vain for a minister. A mis- 
sionary held a service recently at which some 
were present who lived sixty miles from a regular 
church service, and some who had not heard a 
sermon for nine years." 

Such possibilities as these, growing out of the 
magnificent extent of the country, are almost 
beyond our comprehension. " If one corner of 
the Synod of Montana," says the same paper, 
speaking of Presbyterian missions in that State, 
" could be put on Boston, the other would reach 
Cleveland, Ohio. ... A single Presbytery is as 
large as the whole State of Pennsylvania." A 
missionary in Oregon writes thus of a meeting 
held under the auspices of a Woman's Home 
Missionary society : " There is no water in the 
schoolhouse, and the day is oppressively hot, so 
jars of water are brought in a wagon from the 
nearest house. Eighteen saddle-horses and four 
carriages are outside, and the schoolhouse is 
filled with cowboys, sheep herders, ex-convicts, 
and a few Christian families. One woman rode 
fourteen miles horseback, carrying her baby." 

The wife of a Methodist Presiding Elder in 
Colorado says: "When we first went to the 
Rio Grande district I thought I would travel it 
once, at least, to see the country, and come a 
little in touch with the people. But on finding 
that the railroad expense would not only equal 
the cost of a trip to New York and return, but 
include that of Pullman and dining-car service, 



ON THE OUTPOSTS 59 

with tips for the porter, I gave it up. I went 
on one occasion fifteen miles up hill and down 
hill, not passing a house, till all at once a village — 
three or four houses and a store — came into view. 
That fifteen miles was in one pastor's circuit, 
and fifteen or more miles in another direction 
there was another schoolhouse, and about the 
same distance in another direction was a third; 
I know not how many more there were in all of 
which the faithful pastor preached and labored, 
with discouragements many and salary less. . . . 
Only last year a preacher was sent to a small ap- 
pointment, and a girl twenty-one years old for 
the first time in her life attended a church service 
and heard a sermon. It was her first opportu- 
nity ! . . . One man on the Denver district has 
to travel in a one-horse buggy eighty miles every 
two weeks to reach his six appointments." 

" You can travel a hundred miles," says a mis- 
sionary in the far Northwest, " and not see a 
single Christian church, but you cannot go so 
far up the mountain side, or so low down into the 
valley, or so far back into the magnificent forests, 
that you do not see the inevitable beer signs. 
Wherever men go, this enemy of God and man is 
there to meet them. Oh, that the Christian 
Church were as wise, as eager to pre-empt the 
ground for Jesus Christ ! 

" In the Northwest peninsula, within the State 
of Washington, there is untold wealth of moun- 
tain and forest and minerals, yet young men and 



60 UNDER OUR FLAG 

women who have lived there from childhood have 
never been in Sunday-school and never heard a 
sermon. They show great curiosity ' to see a 
preacher/ whom they think must be a peculiar 
sort of being. Mormon missionaries are pushing 
into all these places, and often the largest church 
in the village is a Mormon church. 

" The scenery of this region is unrivaled, the 
climate ideal. It is a great land, a great mission 
field. The frontier preacher is doing heroic 
work, not for money, but for God. One young 
preacher, a splendid fellow, told me that when a 
cowboy he received $65 a month, but that the past 
year he had not seen $65 in twelve months. Yet 
he had no desire to give up preaching." 

Instances of like heroic devotion and self-sac- 
rifice might be multiplied almost indefinitely. 
" Hard for the minister " ? Yes, but think of the 
unshepherded people! The services of a clergy 
man are within immediate call to most of us. 
And these dwellers in the great Northwest are 
people like ourselves, often people who have 
gone there from the church and school oppor- 
tunities of the Central and Eastern States. To 
make the matter worse, there is more than mere 
words in the common saying that " church cer- 
tificates get lost in crossing the Missouri River." 
The struggle for existence in an undeveloped 
country pushes Christian work and often Chris- 
tian life to the rear, and indifference, which ends 
in downright neglect, is the frequent result 



ON THE OUTPOSTS 61 

There is nothing of glamour and excitement 
about work in fields like these. It is simple, 
downright, hard labor for the Lord Jesus Christ. 

The average yearly cash receipts of many a 
clergyman on the frontier are well within $200. 
On this he cares for his family,^ and carries for- 
ward his work, while often the college-bred 
minds of himself and wife clamor in vain for the 
food they need. 

Frequently the scanty support must be eked 
out by work with the hands during the week. 
Of one such the record runs thus: " Home, a 
log cabin of a single room ; furniture made from 
dry-goods boxes, with flour-sack portieres. 
Eight appointments and no horse. To reach 
his weekday work he must needs wade cold 
mountain streams." 

It would be unfair, as a rule, to charge priva- 
tions of this sort to a lack of interest and love 
on the part of the people for whom such sacrifices 
are made. How can they give that which they 
have not themselves? 

Another phase of the frontier problem is seen 
in the mining camps. The saloons are there, 
human souls are there, and there must the mis- 
sionary of the cross unfurl the banner of the Lord 
of Hosts, and call men to the standard of Him 
whose are the silver and the gold. Out of these 
camps cities are often formed, but the beginnings 
are in the hamlets and small villages, those that 
are " no place for a woman," where the men 



62 UNDER OUR FLAG 

work, often underground, for seven days in the 
week, and lose track of the days as they pass. 
Money is needed for this work — men are needed 
still more. 

" I remember one day," writes a missionary on 
the Pacific Coast, " seeing a Government vessel 
from Nome pull into port at Seattle with five 
hundred stranded miners on board. I never saw 
such a wretched, dejected, desperate lot of men in 
my life. Lured on by the gold of Alaska, they 
had met with disappointment, and were coming 
back with everything gone. They were, of 
course, an easy prey for the emissaries of Satan, 
who are so alert to their opportunities in this 
section. Would that the Church realised the 
possibilities of evangelistic work among this class ! 
Many have been converted as the result of street 
meetings and other services in Seattle, and this 
means that fathers and brothers, husbands and 
sons, have not only started Eastward to loved 
ones, but, best of all, have started heaven- 
ward." 

There is no more needy, more urgent, more 
difficult and, at the same time, more hopeful 
field in all the world than the mining towns of 
the Northwest. For by and by comes the re- 
flex, the return wave, back to the home church 
and to the home community; whether that re- 
turn wave is to be " waters of refreshment " to 
those home communities or sewers of corrup- 
tion, depends upon the vigor with which the 



ON THE OUTPOSTS 63 

Christian church sets out to evangelise, cleanse 
and save the miners of the North. 

The political economist talks fluently of the 
law of supply and demand. Fifty thousand 
people moved into North Dakota in 1901. How 
many missionaries did the church send there? 
The passage of the irrigation bill by Congress 
means the expenditure of $150,000,000 in the 
next thirty years. This alone will mean a won- 
derful broadening of frontiers. In the first four 
months of 1902 more immigrants went into Mon- 
tana, Minnesota and North and South Dakota 
than in all of the previous years. Montana alone 
will have 4,000,000 acres additional homestead 
land when fully irrigated. Where the people 
go the church should lead. 

The census of 1900 brought to light some start- 
ling facts concerning the distribution of popula- 
tion, and, in a sense, re-located the frontiers. 
" Practically all the increase in foreign-born 
since 1890," says the statistician, ° has been in 
the New England section of the country." He 
goes on to prove the assertion by showing that 
the present proportion of foreign-born to native, 
the country over — one to six, in round numbers 
— includes marked increase in all the New Eng- 
land States except Vermont, in New Jersey, 
North Carolina, Oklahoma, and Hawaii, and de- 
crease elsewhere. In other words, the great 
Westward movement of New Englanders, with 
their heritage of church and school, has left be- 



64 UNDER OUR FLAG 

hind areas that would be vacant had they not 
been filled by a very different class coming from 
the Old World — a class to whose needs the 
church of God may not close her eyes and re- 
main guiltless — or safe. 

Hastening to make a railroad connection in 
the grey of the early morning, the stage on a 
certain New England route climbs a long hill* 
and passes a church at its top — built, as was the 
custom in the days of its erection, on the sightliest 
and most inaccessible spot in town. There it 
stands, gaunt and grim, the ghost of a church, 
for through its windowless casements and empty 
door-frames the winds whistle a dirge for the 
days gone by. They were days of Christian 
work and cheer — days in which the fire burned 
upon its now ruined altars, and its sounding- 
board echoed the Law and the Gospel proclaimed 
from its pulpit. What happened? The old mem- 
bers, one by one, passed away ; the young people, 
christened within its walls, nurtured by its care, 
married by its ministers, went their ways, some 
to near-by cities, some to the West, then so far 
distant. There was less and less money for the 
support of the church as time went on— the more 
because the farms around, which had been the 
abode of American Protestants, passed into the 
hands of foreign Catholics — or worse. The old 
church stands in all its desolation, a mute wit- 
ness of the past, a silent exponent of the change 
that has taken place within the last fifty years, 



ON THE OUTPOSTS 65 

through which, by curious reversal, New Eng- 
land is becoming frontier ground. 

BY WAY OF ILLUSTRATION 

"A young lady, sixteen years of age, the daugh- 
ter of one of our pastors, came to my home to 
borrow books and spend the night. She was 
looking for a place to work for her board and 
attend school. Her entire wardrobe was from 
the missionary box, with one exception — her 
hair was pinned up with nails ! When I told her 
they would ruin her hair, she said : * I know it ; 
papa does not know I am out of hairpins. But 
as soon as he pays a sacred debt he is going to 
let me have the first money he earns.' He is a 
carpenter, and was obliged to work at his trade 
to support his family, but was never known to 
miss an appointment, though some of them were 
forty miles distant. 

" One year four of our pastors, good, worthy 
men, received less than one hundred dollars each, 
missionary money included. In two of these 
homes that year the families had but one roll 
of butter each from one September until the 
next. One of our pastors received only seven- 
teen dollars for the year's work on his circuit. 
His wife supported him, selling milk from one 
cow, and boarding the school teacher. 

" Do not for a moment think these are things 
I have read of in books in regard to foreign 



66 UNDER OUR FLAG 

fields, for in our own homeland I have visited 
in these homes. I have seen cupboards that were 
made of book boxes nailed to the wall, one 
placed upon another. The screen door, made of 
flour sacks, dropped down as a curtain. I have 
dined in homes where the table, made of dry- 
goods boxes, was without covering of either 
table linen or oilcloth, simply the plain pine 
board ; but it was white and clean. The cracks of 
some of these parsonage homes are corked with 
burlap sacks and moss from the trees, to shield 
the inmates from the cold." — Mrs. J., Wife of a 
Presiding Elder in Oregon. 

A little girl came in from her home on the 

prairie to the town of and one day she 

suddenly asked her Sunday-school teacher: 

" You used to live in Brooklyn, didn't 
you ? " 

" Yes." 

" That is just opposite New York, isn't it? " 

" Yes." 

"Wasn't that nice? Then, whenever you 
wanted to go to church all that you had to do was 
to go over to New York and you could find a 
church ! " 

The child did not mean to be hard on Brook- 
lyn, but she had discovered the pleasure of 
church-going after living where the nearest ser- 
vice was one town away. 

Into the primary room of the same Sunday- 



ON THE OUTPOSTS 67 

school a stranger came soon after, and, looking 
about in surprise, asked the teacher: 

" Is this the church? " 

" No, this is the Sunday-school room, but the 
morning service will soon begin. Won't you sit 
down and wait ? " 

As they went into church afterward the 
stranger said, " I am so glad you asked me to 
wait. I wanted my little girl here to see 
what service is like. She has never been to 
church." 

The little girl was twelve years old, and the 
teacher asked her mother, " How long since you 
have been to a service yourself? " 

" Oh," she answered, " I hope you don't think 
I did not want to go. If you could see my home 
and know how far it is from the nearest church, 
I think you would understand. I haven't been to 
church for fourteen years." 

How to bring to people like these the priv- 
ileges of occasional church services is the prob- 
lem of the Far West. The older States are send- 
ing their best sons and daughters, and scattering 
them in the undeveloped sections of Washington 
and Idaho; and when money comes from the 
older States for church work, it is used to follow 
up with religious influence the men and women 
they have sent, who are destined to make such an 
influential part of the West. 

A mining camp is not all bad. It is rough. 



68 UNDER OUR FLAG 

Half the men in any camp wish the conditions 
were better. But every man is there to make his 
pile as quickly as he can, and then to leave. 
They rarely consider it a home. If they can help 
it, they never bring their wives and families with 
them. 

The great need of these communities is the 
need of men who care more for their brothers' 
welfare than for the speedy making of a pile. 
The man who falls sick in a camp, or is hurt in an 
accident, finds as much, yes, more, sympathy and 
generous help than he would in New York City 
— unorganised, individual help, too. But of 
moral help, very little; spiritual help, almost none 
at all. — From " The Spirit of Missions." 

A missionary worker in the extreme North- 
west, who is thoroughly familiar with that vast 
field, writes thus concerning it : 

" The great Northwest is rapidly becoming the 
richest and grandest section of our country, and 
must be held for God. People are pouring into 
it by thousands every month, large numbers of 
them being the immigrants who land at our 
eastern sea-gates. They do not tend to form 
' cities within cities,' as in the East, and so are 
easier to win and to assimilate through gospel 
influences. 

" Representatives of nearly every nation under 
heaven are found in these western cities, and all 
are there to stay. The great host is augmented 



ON THE OUTPOSTS 69 

by the stream of adventurers, those who risk all in 
the wild rush for gold, men like those described 
in ' Black Rock,' seemingly given up to sin, yet 
with noble blood in their veins and splendid 
qualities on which to build." 

For over half a century the Home Missionaries 
of the Pacific Northwest have been plunging into 
the forests, picking their way along the trails of 
the miners, burying themselves for months at a 
time in isolated places far from the main lines of 
travel. They have sacrificed without a murmur. 
They have won the respect of the rough back- 
woodsmen who hate shams, they have not feared 
to declare the whole counsel of God to men who 
did not want to believe that the Gospel was true. 
I wish you might know some of our Home Mis- 
sionary soldiers, whose heroisms are rarely 
heralded abroad, and who have no martial music 
to inspire them to battle. Let me introduce you 
to some of them ; here comes one swinging up the 
street on his pony; his long ulster is covered with 
mud; he has on rubber boots that come to his 
hips. His white necktie has got around under his 
ear. His face beams with such joy as danced in 
the eyes of the seventy when they returned to the 
Master. The hand that grasps yours is not 
dainty and white like that of the fashionable 
preacher who spends his forenoons over his 
books and his afternoons over the teacups. It is 
rough, and brown, and strong. He has ridden 



70 UNDER OUR FLAG 

thirty-five miles, through the mud, since seven 
o'clock this morning. Yesterday he went to a 
little church off in the foothills, built the fire, 
rang the bell, conducted the service, superin- 
tended the Sunday-school, led the singing for 
the Christian Endeavor Society, and preached 
in the evening. 

Here is another, who has just returned from a 
trip through the " cow " counties. Last Tues- 
day you might have seen him on a stage with 
his felt hat drawn down over his eyes trying to 
catch a few winks of sleep between jolts as he 
drew near the end of a journey of one hundred 
and eighty miles from the railroad. On Wed- 
nesday he went with a local missionary from store 
to store to raise money for the coming year. In 
the evening he told the old story of Calvary to a 
rough crowd that filled the little church to the 
doors. Thursday he moved on fifty miles, and 
preached to men who had not heard a sermon in 
twenty years. Last year he travelled by stage 
and horseback and boat a distance of 27,000 
miles, and was with his family thirty-seven days 
out of the three hundred and sixty-five. 

Here is another. He knows every trout 
stream within twenty-five miles of his station, 
can kill a deer every shot at fifty yards, and 
preach six nights in a week without getting 
tired. An anarchist in his town, hearing that 
President McKinley had been assassinated, said, 
" I'm glad of it, he ought to have been killed 



ON THE OUTPOSTS 71 

long ago." When this Home Missionary heard 
what his townsman had said, he went to the an- 
archist's store, looked the man straight in the 
eye, and said, " My friend, I understand you said 
this morning that you were glad our President 
had been shot. You ought to be ashamed of 
yourself. I want to tell you that if I ever hear 
of your saying such a thing again, I'll give you 
the worst thrashing you ever had." The an- 
archist looked the preacher over for a moment 
as if noting the broad shoulders and the meaning 
of the steady grey eyes ; then he apologised and 
said he would never say such a thing again. 
That is the way our Home Missionaries some- 
times preach the gospel of patriotism. 

Have you any idea of the monotony amidst 
which men like these live and move and have their 
being ? It is one thing to delight over the spark- 
ling pages of the " Sky Pilot." It is a second 
thing to visit a lumber camp for a day, or spend 
a few hours in a rollicking mining town. It is 
a third thing to listen to blasphemy three hun- 
dred and sixty-five days in a year, to give one's 
heart and head and hand to the work with full 
devotion for twelve months and apparently make 
no more impression on the godlessness of a town 
than if a cowboy had taken a shot at the moon; 
to face the same rocky canons and the same 
desolate hills month after month and year after 
year. — Rc7\ Dr. Edgar P. Hill, in " Centennial of 
Home Missions." 



72 UNDER OUR FLAG 

" Last Sunday/' writes a city minister of a sum- 
mer vacation, " I preached at a little settlement 
on Mt. Desert Island (off the Maine coast), 
where one old man came on foot over two miles 
to the schoolhouse where the service was con- 
ducted, that being the nearest service he could 
attend. Next Sunday I expect to preach at an- 
other schoolhouse in a distant part of the island, 
where there is no service of any kind all the year 
around but that of a small Sunday-school, which 
is practically supported by a lady resident in New 
York City. This little community is so far re- 
moved from any church that it is a physical im- 
possibility for them to attend. Yet there are 
still other places on this island that are even 
worse off, and where the children have absolutely 
no opportunity to attend either church or Sunday- 
school." 



ALASKA 

We think of Alaska, and correctly, as a region 
of ice and snow. During the winter months there 
is daylight for only a few hours out of the twenty- 
four. The cold is intense, icicles several inches in 
length forming from the moisture of a man's 
breath in the central and northern sections. 

But this is not the whole story, In a country 
nearly as large as the whole of the United States 
east of the Mississippi, and with a definite sum- 
mer, even though short, there is room for va- 



ON THE OUTPOSTS 73 

riety of climate. The southern coast of Alaska 
is as mild in winter as Ohio. Good authorities 
claim that two or three great agricultural States 
will yet be carved out of its interior. Wheat, 
rye, oats, barley, potatoes, turnips, cabbages, 
strawberries and raspberries grow well there. 
Sweet grasses, red top and wild timothy, stand 
waist-high in the central plains. Sixty-two 
kinds of flowers have been counted in blossom 
at one time on an acre of ground. 

We are more or less familiar with the mineral 
wealth of this region, although its full extent 
is doubtless larger than is yet dreamed. The 
royalty paid the government by the seal fisheries 
alone, has balanced the purchase money of 
Alaska more than twice over. Other fisheries 
are in their infancy, but, already, they supply 
more than half the canned salmon of the world. 

In 1875 there were less than 500 white men 
in the territory. In the winter of 1901-2, the 
white population was estimated at from 50,000 
to 60,000. Commerce and gold-hunting are 
rapidly opening up and pre-empting this, one of 
the few unexplored sections left on the earth's 
surface. Will the Christian church awake to its 
opportunity? The question involves the whole 
future of Alaska. It is a current saying there 
that " God doesn't exist beyond the sixtieth de- 
gree of north latitude." 

Christian work, for both whites and natives, 
is imperative in this outpost of the extreme 



*4 UNDER OUR FLAG 

Northwest. " The first cargo shipped to a min- 
ing camp is whiskey. The first establishment 
set up is a saloon. And in this, whether it be a 
tent or a hastily built cabin, all sorts of gam- 
bling are carried on for seven days in the week," 
the place becoming a low dance-hall as well as 
a saloon and gambling-hell. 

A more forlorn-looking lot than the native 
women and children of Alaska in their natural 
condition it would be difficult to conceive. Per- 
haps their chief characteristic is dirt. The girls 
are married at thirteen or thereabouts, the new 
families thus formed becoming part of the house- 
hold in the one-room cabins, caves, or snow- 
huts. 

There is little of what we recognize as the joys 
of childhood among Alaskan children. The 
fearful storms that sweep peninsula and islands 
fill their hearts with terror. The conditions of 
life forbid much of the free, glad outdoor play 
that is the birthright of children in kindlier cli- 
mates, and their dwellings offer no substitute. 
" Alaskan children seldom laugh " is a statement 
full of pitiful significance. 

Even when Alaskan girls are under mission- 
ary protection in the Homes and schools, con- 
stant watch must be kept against men from 'the 
whaling ships — men whose skins are white but 
whose hearts are " black as Erebus," and who 
consider the native girls their legitimate prey. 
Putting into port for water, coal and provisions, 



ON THE OUTPOSTS 75 

" shore leave " has brought lifetime suffering 
and sorrow for many a girl in the snow country. 

The priesthood of the Russian-Greek church, 
some of whom are still uneducated and super- 
stitious, finds free scope for its mummeries 
among this ignorant, childlike people. So does 
the medicine doctor with his theories of witch- 
craft and his senseless prescriptions. 

The enmity of the priests extends beyond 
death, the village coffin maker having in some 
instances been forbidden to make coffins for 
those who have attended mission schools. But 
Christian womanhood has proved itself compe- 
tent to deal even with this problem, and the ex- 
pectation of the priest that the bodies will be 
given him for burial with churchly rites has been 
disappointed. So persistent have been these 
priestly demands, that the presence of the mis- 
sionary and the United States flag in the door- 
way have been required to keep out the intruder. 

But there are brave, heroic souls bearing the 
banner of the Cross even into mining camps and 
native igloos, travelling two hundred miles on 
the frozen trail between Sundays, preaching each 
night in some miner's cabin. The men needed 
here are those " who can lie on the snow when it 
is 6o° below zero, and keep healthy, happy and 
contented." Such men — men before they were 
preachers — meet with hearty welcome even 
among the roughs of the camps — for these, the 
advance-guard of civilisation, possessing, per- 



76 UNDER OUR FLAG 

force, the same qualities of courage and perse- 
verance, are able to appreciate them in others. 

As everywhere in new sections, the messen- 
gers of our Lord Jesus Christ must bear to Alaska 
healing for bodies as well as souls. One may 
travel thousands of miles even along the coast, 
where settlements are most numerous and best 
equipped, and find no physician. Western 
Alaska and the Yukon valley, populated with 
thousands of men, coming and going as sealers, 
whalers, miners, and workmen in the canneries, 
are practically without hospital or medical aid. To 
these must be added the native Aleuts, Eskimos 
and Indians, whose condition is pitiful in the 
extreme, and there are missionary graves in 
Alaska to-day that need not have been there had 
there been medical or surgical help at hand in 
the hour of need. " Graves of missionaries may 
be like anchors holding the church to a missionary 
field, but living missionaries are better." 

What this lack of physical help in their hours 
of sorest need means to the women of Alaska, 
can be but faintly realised by their more fortu- 
nate sisters. Hospitals must be provided, 
schools must be established and maintained, in- 
dustrial Homes must teach womanliness, home- 
making and home-keeping. The " all nations " 
of the Master's commission includes the Aleuts 
of Alaska. But their redemption cannot be ac- 
complished without the efforts of Christian 
womanhood. 



ON THE OUTPOSTS 71 

ALASKAN CONDITIONS 

" Ink freezes on the pens of the scholars as 
they write; people in church have to keep stamp- 
ing their feet to keep warm, and the minister 
has to break off icicles from his moustache while 
preaching." 

" Me sick," said an old chief to a missionary. 
" Me sick at heart. My people all dark at heart. 
Nobody tell them Jesus died. By and by all die 
— go down — to dark, dark! " 

Although women are recognised as the natu- 
ral burden-bearers among the Alaskans, yet the 
right of descent is on their side of the family, a 
child inheriting name and property from its 
mother instead of its father. In Alaskan myth- 
ology, the crow stands as creator, and woman 
was his first work. He made her the head of 
the Crow family, man, a secondary creation, be- 
ing head of the Wolf, or warrior, family. 

Salem witchcraft was as nothing compared 
with the superstitious notions and cruel prac- 
tices in the homes of Alaska. During a grip 
epidemic the children had to return all their 
slates to their teachers, as the pictures the chil- 
dren drew were the " bad medicine " that caused 
all the sickness, for which the children were 
punished. A child less than five years old was 
beaten and almost starved to death because she 



?8 UNDER OUR FLAG 

was giving " bad medicine " to a woman who 
was ill. Hundreds have been tortured, and even 
put to death, as the authors of witchcraft that 
caused sickness or misfortune. 

The medicine man, or Shaman, with his horrid 
mask and costume, his weird incantations and 
claims to supernatural vision and power, his 
worse than nostrums and inhumanly cruel treat- 
ment of some forms of sickness, is still a power 
in the land. The people fear him, and are in 
constant dread of the spirits in water and air 
that may any moment obey him and inflict upon 
them some dire disease. 

The result is that if a physician tries to treat 
them in their homes, they neglect his medicines 
and resort to witchcraft in his absence. If the 
patient dislikes the medicine, or fancies it makes 
him worse, they heed his whims. They cannot 
appreciate a dietary regimen, but feed the sick in 
ways that would ordinarily kill the well. Ven- 
tilation is a thing entirely unknown. Their 
houses, or barabaras, usually have but one room, 
often partially underground, damp, filthy, sick- 
ening. Into this family room, already vile, the 
neighbours gather to sit with the sick. They 
often imbibe " quass," and gossip till drunk. 
Nine drunken women were sprawling on the 
floor of a sickroom and filling the place with 
odors unspeakable when our missionaries went 
to see how the patient was progressing. — 'Mrs. 
A. F. Beiler. 



ON THE OUTPOSTS 79 

A brighter side of the picture is shown in the 
devotion of Alaskan Indians, ten men of the 
mission, who for three days in a frail dug-out 
braved the open sea to bring a physician across 
sixty miles of stormy water to save the life of a 
woman missionary. When the captain of the 
native crew was asked what reward should be 
given for such services, he reproachfully ex- 
claimed, " Do not breathe any such idea to my 
men. It would break their hearts. No amount 
of gold would have tempted us on that sea; but 
she loved us and we loved her, and would have 
died for her. if need be." 



TOKENS OF HOPE 

A company of Alaskans were so anxious to 
learn about Christianity that they came to a 
class held at six o'clock in the morning, that 
they might be free from interruptions. 

Said an old chief in describing his conversion, 
" I've given my whole heart — not half of it." 

" I want to come to school to learn about 
God," said an Alaskan boy. " Don't you want 
to learn about books?" asked the teacher. 
" Yes, books, but God more," was the boy's 
reply. 

" The service was mostly in the native 
tongue," writes one who attended a meeting of 



80 UNDER OUR FLAG 

native Christians, " but we could almost know 
what they were saying by the intonations of 
thankfulness, humility and supplication, and the 
oft-repeated word ' Jesus,' which is borrowed 
from the English, as there is no corresponding 
word in their language." 

" Most of the native Christians^" says a mis- 
sionary, " are very careful to keep the Sabbath 
rest. One man, who makes his living by freight- 
ing goods up the river, lost a good job because 
he would not load on Sunday; another lost the 
sale of a boatload of salmon because he would 
not travel on Sunday to deliver the fish to the 
cannery." 

Out of its poverty and with but limited re- 
sources, the Presbytery of Alaska is credited 
with an annual contribution of " about four dol- 
lars per member for Christ's kingdom." " Were 
there not ten cleansed? Where are the nine? " 

The teacher and the missionary, the church 
and the school, have exerted a stronger influ- 
ence for the elevation, civilisation, and educa- 
tion of the Alaskan native, than any and all other 
forces combined. — From the Official Report of a 
Governor of Alaska. 

MEMORY TEST 

Locate the frontiers. 

Describe homes occupied by frontier min- 
isters. 



ON THE OUTPOSTS 81 

Describe the travelling that must be done by 
a frontier minister. 

What conditions are found in the mining 
camps ? 

What connection has the passage of the irri- 
gation bill with Home Mission work? 

What change has taken place in New England 
since 1890? 

What are the physical conditions of Alaska? 

Has its purchase paid from a financial stand- 
point? 

Why is the Territory being explored ? 

What does this mean to the Christian church? 

Describe Alaskan homes. 

What are the special needs of Alaska from the 
Christian standpoint? 

From whom does an Alaskan child inherit 
name and property? 

What is the state of medical knowledge among 
this people? 

BIBLE LESSON 
A Dozen Questions 

1. In what respect was Esther typical of the 
Home Missionary Worker? 

2. Which is the patriotic, and, therefore, the 
Home Missionary, Psalm? 

3. What was God's test of true giving when 
the tabernacle was built? 

4. Find a motto for Home Mission work in 
the story of Rahab. 



82 UNDER OUR FLAG 

5. What word of Manoah may well be the 
question of missionary societies? 

6. What descriptions of work are found in 
1 Chron., Chapters 4-12? What is their appli- 
cation to missionary work? 

7. What Jewish priest arranged a mite box 
for the receipt of offerings for the Lord? 

8. What miracle did Christ work for an im- 
migrant woman? 

9. What definite command for Home Mis- 
sionary work was given by Christ? 

10. Was the work of Dorcas, Home Mission- 
ary or church work? 

11. Who was the deaconess of the church at 
Cenchrea, and what is said of her work? 

12. What prophecy for the home church was 
made by Paul, the great foreign mission- 
ary? 



AMERICA FOR CHRIST 

(Tune—" From Greenland's Icy Mountains.") 

We claim our land for Jesus, 

Its vales and towering hills, 
Its cities full and hamlets, 

Its brooks and gurgling rills. 
We claim its wealth for Jesus, 

Its lowly poor we claim, 
Its native-born and alien, 

Of every hue and name. 



ON THE OUTPOSTS 83 

Around us souls are dying, 

They perish at our door; 
The land is full of sighing 

And sin, from shore to shore. 
Gladly we toil to save them, 

From death to make them free, 
For Him whose life He gave them, 

Far back at Calvary. 

— T. E. Roach. 



V 

CHILDREN OF THE ORIENT 

IN THE HAWAIIAN ISLANDS 

THE guns of Admiral Dewey in Manila 
Harbor settled at once and forever a 
question that had been under considera- 
tion for half a century. It is a literal fact that 
no man-of-war can cross the Pacific and be of 
any service after reaching Manila without re- 
coaling on the way. Neither troops nor ships- 
mercantile or naval — can be sent to the Philip- 
pine Islands without a halfway place at which 
they may obtain needed supplies. There had been 
a dim realisation of the fact that sometime, 
somehow, this island group might be of value to 
us, and in 1843 tne United States notified the 
world that it would not, without opposition, per- 
mit any other power to take possession thereof. 
But with direct and important interests on the 
other side of the sea, our acquisition of the 
Hawaiian Islands became a necessity. 

But stronger bonds than those of trade or 

treaty had linked the two countries together, 

and made possible the political union of the two. 

Oahu and its sister islands were already ours 

84 



THE ORIENT 85 

by virtue of the Christianity that fitted them to 
take place by our side, one sovereign nation mak- 
ing agreement with another. The history of 
missionary work in the kingdom reads like a 
romance. In 1818 the islanders abandoned 
idolatry, and became " a people without a re- 
ligion." The next year, knowing nothing of 
that action, but following the leadings of Provi- 
dence, a little band of missionaries, bidding fare- 
well to home and loved ones in old Park Street 
Church, hard by Boston Common, sailed for 
Honolulu. Between that date and 1853 some- 
thing over $900,000 was expended in mission 
work on the islands. By that time, they ceased 
to be missionary ground. What the change 
meant, from the very lowest commercial stand- 
point, may be gathered from a single illustra- 
tion: in 1897 the Hawaiian exports to the United 
States alone amounted to more than ten and a 
half million dollars. 

" In seventy years," says a recent writer, " the 
islands have been raised from the lowest degra- 
dation to a condition of average literacy higher 
than that of all other countries save the United 
States, Prussia, and Switzerland, and to a wealth 
per capita averaging greater than any other 
country in the world. The first printing-press 
on our Pacific coast was sent thither from Hono- 
lulu, and while Indians and buffalo roamed the 
1 new West ' at will, Hawaii furnished the gold 
hunters of 1849 with potatoes and wheat." 



86 UNDER OUR FLAG 

The Hawaiian Islands are " a veritable land 
of sunshine and breezes," having almost uniform 
temperature, no hurricanes, and thunderstorms 
but rarely. The native language has no word 
to express " weather," and one wonders what 
the people do for a staple of conversation. 

Hawaiian women were not beasts of burden, 
but enjoyed the confidence of their husbands 
and shared their counsels. The native race, in 
unmixed form, is rapidly decreasing, but 
through intermarriage with stronger races a new 
and fine national character is being evolved. 
With such conditions it would seem there was 
little field for missionary effort from the main- 
land, and little need of such help. 

Nor would there be if this were all. But other 
races and other conditions are there. Accord- 
ing to the census of 1896, the total female popu- 
lation of the islands is 36,503, of whom 5195 are 
Japanese, and 2440 Chinese. Of the 114,000 
people in Hawaii, one-fifth are Japanese, one- 
fourth Chinese. Of the 9000 Japanese in Hono- 
lulu, 1000 are women ; and of these women less 
than twenty attend Christian services, the vast 
majority being Buddhists, as are most of the 
Chinese and Japanese on the islands. Of the 
others, 52 per cent, of the Japanese are 
Mormons, and 5.14 per cent, of the Chinese. 
Nor are these unintelligent, ignorant masses. 
The per cent, of those able to read and write 
stands as follows: 



THE ORIENT 87 

Natives, 83.97; Japanese, 52.60; Chinese, 

48.47- 

Of the Japanese of school age, 94.55 per cent, 
attend school; of the Chinese, 92.48 per cent. 

Buddhism upon our shores! Womanhood in- 
sulted and degraded by idolatrous rites and cus- 
toms! There is imminent danger to the fair 
land of the Southern seas, danger that she can- 
not meet alone. She needs the help of America 
and, especially, of American womanhood. 

HAWAIIAN ASIATICS 

" Chinamen substantially fill the majority of 
places in the machine, carpenter and other shops 
where expert work is requisite, and leave few 
vacancies in fields of labor less exacting. And 
the Chinaman carries his competition farther, 
and with as great success — he very nearly mo- 
nopolises the lower class of Hawaiian women. 
. . . He is the very quintessence of industry, the 
only man in the Far East who continues work- 
ing after he has accumulated a couple of dollars. 
. . . He is a good provider and kind to the 
weaker members of the household ; so in Hawaii, 
as in Siam, the native woman marries him in 
preference to her own countryman." 

The Japanese are eager, active and restless. 
Intensely patriotic, keenly alive to the place of 
Japan among the nations, they form to-day a 



88 UNDER OUR FLAG 

difficult element in the population. The mass 
of those in the islands are from the lowest ele- 
ments in Japan, and they have not proved the 
most desirable laborers or the best citizens. As 
a rule they do not bring their wives with them, 
and, as they never marry the Hawaiians, their ex- 
ample and influence are not on the side of mo- 
rality. 

The Hawaiians are an easy-going, kindly 
people, winsome and charming in their friend- 
ships, lovable in their ways and easily led for 
good or evil. They have the lines of strength 
and weakness which they share with other chil- 
dren of the tropics. They are not a commercial 
people. They care little for money-making, still 
less for the accumulation of wealth. They are 
generous givers and live luxuriously so long as 
the money lasts. They lack the qualities of lead- 
ership, and will never be an influential factor in 
the commercial development of the islands. 

The Chinese of Hawaii are not generally un- 
derstood in the United States. They are differ- 
ent from their countrymen in America. We 
think here of the laundrymen and the keepers 
of the dens of Chinatown. In America they live 
apart, aloof, with us but not of us. In Hawaii 
many of the Chinese marry Hawaiian women 
and settle down for life. They are at home to 
live and die. They are industrious, frugal and 
law-abiding. To-day they control the business 
of market-gardening in Honolulu. The ducks 



THE ORIENT 89 

and chickens are raised and sold by them. The 
small shops and stores in all the islands are 
manned by them. They make shoes and houses. 
They are tailors and dressmakers, plumbers and 
painters — the Yankees of the East. The China- 
man is a public-spirited citizen, and his children 
are in the public school. Of all the many mix- 
tures of race in Hawaii, the best is the cross be- 
tween the Hawaiian and the Chinese. The child 
of this union has the good qualities of both par- 
ents — the kindly, gracious spirit of the Hawaiian 
and the virile, aggressive intelligence of the 
Chinese. He is to-day one of the most useful 
elements of the varied population, and the United 
States, if she has the interest of Hawaii at heart, 
should permit more of the Chinese to settle in 
the Islands. Five thousand of the better grade 
would be a blessing there to-day. — Front " The 
Southern Workman." 

THE CHINESE 

" These from the land of Sinim," said Isaiah, 
enumerating those who were destined to share 
the blessings of " the Redeemer, the Holy One 
of Israel." Interpreting the word to mean 
" China," we have given scant evidence in this 
country of willingness to help, through personal 
effort, the people named by the prophet. The 
Chinese question, so far as Home Missionary 
work is concerned, is almost everywhere. No 



90 UNDER OUR FLAG 

city of any considerable size, the country over, 
lacks its laundries manned by almond-eyed Ce- 
lestials and patronised by men and women of 
Christian churches. How many of these laun- 
drymen have been taught of Him who maketh 
the sinful heart " whiter than snow " ? 

Little as has been done for Chinese men, still 
less, in proportion to their numbers, has been 
done for the women of the Orient who have 
come to this country. The conditions that con- 
front the Home Missionary worker among the 
Chinese are most serious in San Francisco. Be- 
hind barred windows, in dark, unhealthful dens, 
sit Chinese slave girls, the victims of the lust 
and greed of their masters, bought and sold, de- 
graded and suffering. Often they are little girls 
— mere children who should find in God's free 
sunlight and clear air the blessings that belong 
to childhood. " They know no worship except 
that of incense-burning, exploding fire-crackers 
and other combustible Chinese prayers." Even 
if rescued, they are not safe, for recapture, in 
spite of the law, would be almost inevitable if 
they went on the street without white protec- 
tion. 

Is it any wonder that before the opening of 
Mission homes in California many a Chinese 
woman ended the life that seemed so hopeless? 

One who is thoroughly conversant with con- 
ditions on the Pacific coast writes of them thus: 

"We have no need to cross the seas and pene- 



THE ORIENT 91 

trate the jungles of far-away tropical lands to 
find missionary work; a heathenism dark as any 
found in the wilds of Africa or the islands of 
the South Seas is to be found at our own doors. 
Ever since the Chinese set foot upon the shores 
of California human chattel slavery has existed. 
The army of custom-house officials, the laws of 
the land, the whole power of a united Christian 
sentiment, backed by the moral sentiment of the 
whole community, have thus far been but a por- 
tiere of cobwebs across the Golden Gate so far 
as excluding these yellow-faced slaves is con- 
cerned. 

" Five thousand Chinese women in California 
— fifteen hundred slaves in San Francisco, two 
hundred of whom are little slave girls — are slaves 
in free America. These slave girls on our Pacific 
coast have been bought or kidnapped in China, 
brought to this free country, sold in the silent 
slave markets of San Francisco, and doomed to 
a slavery that passes description." 

In combating these evils the missionaries 
fight almost single-handed against a large and 
wealthy association of slave-dealers, who are as- 
sisted by lawyers and others of our own blood, 
men who can be bought by highbinders' money ! 
Less intense, perhaps, but none the less pitiful, 
is the condition of Japanese women and girls on 
our Pacific coast. Only Christianity creates 
homes. 

" The Chinese bring their idolatry with them. 



92 UNDER OUR FLAG 

They set up their heathen temples under the 
shadow of our Christian churches. There are 
eighteen of these temples in San Francisco alone. 
The newest, largest, and finest is that ... on 
Waverly Place. . . . The principal idol in it is 
a great, red-faced, hideously grotesque Joss, 
dressed in gaudy robes, called Kwan Tai, the 
god of war. . . . The temple is fitted out with all 
the paraphernalia of heathen worship." 

In the temple of the Kong Chow Company, 
there was recently sold to a temple keeper, for 
twenty thousand dollars, the exclusive right for 
a year to sell the things used in idolatrous wor- 
ship. Verily, idolatry is not yet dead! 

" The worship of ancestors, the strong belief 
that every nook and cranny of creation is filled 
with evil spirits, as well as the grosser forms of 
idolatry, have wrapped the Chinese in the in- 
tricate meshes of the most debasing superstition. 
The work of Christianising this great ' Gibraltar 
of heathenism ' on our Western coast is a task 
which nothing but the divine power of the Gos- 
pel of Jesus Christ can ever accomplish. 

" The Chinamen will never make America his 
permanent home. This is the very reason why 
we should give him the Gospel to take home 
with him. . . . To this nation is now being given 
one of the most wonderful opportunities that has 
ever been offered for helping forward the King- 
dom of God on the earth. Through the repre- 
sentatives of the Chinese empire who have provi- 



THE ORIENT 93 

dentially come to our shores we can send back 
the saving and enlightening influences of the 
Gospel, thus preparing a belated people to take 
their place in the world's onward march. How 
are we meeting this grave responsibility?" 



FOREIGN MISSIONS AT HOME 

Sons shall be his, on couches lulled to rest. 

The little ones, enrobed, with sceptres play; 
Their infant cries are loud as stern behest; 

Their knees the vermeil covers shall display. 
As king, hereafter, one shall be addressed: 

The rest, as princes, in our states shall sway. 

And daughters also to him shall be born. 

They shall be placed upon the ground to sleep : 
Their playthings, tiles; their dress, the simplest 
worn: 
Their part alike from good and ill to keep, 
And ne'er their parents' hearts to cause to mourn; 
To cook the food, and spirit malt to keep. 

— From a Chinese Classic. 



House-to-house visiting among women and 
children in Chinatown leads up narrow, filthy 
stairs to the third and fourth stories, and often 
down into dark basements. The rooms are more 
than crowded, many without windows or means 
of ventilation, save possibly through transoms, 
less than seven feet square in area; the odor is 
almost unendurable. Whole families are packed 
in these little boxes of rooms. 



94 UNDER OUR FLAG 

The Chinese are much harder to reach in this 
country than in China. They are not going to 
change their religion until convinced that they 
have found something better. They suppose that 
all Europeans are Christians, while the fact is 
that the class of Europeans coming most in con- 
tact with the Chinese are not Christians, but very 
far from it. Those who hang around China- 
town are far more degraded beings than the 
very worst of the Chinese, and the manner in 
which the Gospel is represented to these poor 
people is, to say the least, extremely confusing. 
They often say : " The missionary tells us, get 
Holy Spirit in our heart. Make bad man good. 
No more cheat. No more steal. Make him 
very good. I see white man. He say he is 
Christian. He not good. Lie, cheat, swear, all 
the same heathen Chinese." 

The slave question alone is enough to arouse 
righteous indignation in the heart of every per- 
son who can read and understand the Constitu- 
tion of the United States. Consider the fact 
that fifteen hundred slave girls are held in bond- 
age against their will, behind barred windows, 
bolted doors, and locked gates, watched and 
guarded by white men employed by the slave 
owner for the purpose of preventing the poor, 
unfortunate creatures escaping to the missions. 
These white men receive a good salary for their 
nefarious business, and the girls are compelled 
to lead a life of shame, no matter how young 



THE ORIENT 95 

and tender their years, or how much they abhor 
the life. The slave owner has paid between 
$1500 and $2500 for his chattel, and she is his 
to do with as he pleases, to beat, to scourge, to 
burn with red-hot irons in case she refuses to 
make money for him. She is completely in his 
power. 

Recently a nine-months-old baby girl was 
sold for $350, the money going to pay the bal- 
ance due on her parents' wedding feast. The 
little girl will be raised as a domestic slave, and 
when old enough will be sold into a life of 
shame for the sum of $2000 or more. These 
slave girls are often maltreated and made to 
carry burdens far too heavy for their strength 
and years. Girls ranging from seven to ten 
years are obliged to carry a large, bouncing, 
Chinese baby boy strapped on their backs, where 
he takes his nap in the daytime. I have seen 
these ill-fed, poorly clad little creatures carrying 
a boy from a year and a half to two years old, 
their bent bodies swaying under the burden, 
and in going down an inclined street spreading 
their feet to balance themselves. Woe to them 
if they should happen to slip or fall with the 
precious son and heir! 

The children of the master are often tyrannical 
to the slave girl. To illustrate, we have the case 
of little Kwan Ho, who was found crouched in a 
corner of the " Chamber of Tranquillity " in the 
horrible presence of the dead and dying, and 



96 UNDER OUR FLAG 

burdened with the thought that she was there 
to remain without food until death released her 
from her sufferings. The horrors of this place 
can never be adequately told, with its filth, its 
stench, its vermin, and its gruesome darkness, 
but little Kwan Ho was kept there for twenty- 
four hours — a poor little cripple, suffering in- 
tensely from a cruel injury to her spine caused by 
a blow with an iron rod in the hands of one of 
her master's children. 

It is much harder now to rescue slaves from 
dens than hitherto. The slave-dealers are 
bolder; upheld by our officials they break the 
laws, and defy us and all our efforts to rescue 
the girls. Recently the entrances to several al- 
leys have been boarded up, the gates being pad- 
locked, and guarded by white watchmen. On 
the outside of the gates is posted this notice, 
" Private. No white person allowed inside with 
or without guides." Within these gates are sev- 
eral hundred slave girls, who are living vile 
lives at the command of the greedy master. 

Some of the girls forced to lead this life were 
kidnapped in China. One girl, a tea-picket', 
while on her way to her work was drugged, 
carried away, and put down in the hold of one 
of the steamships plying between this port and 
China. Coached by the Chinese steward, she 
was taught to say that she had been born in 
San Francisco, naming the street and number of 
the house, and the room, that she had been to 



THE ORIENT 97 

China to see her grandmother, and was now 
returning to her parents. She was shown a pic- 
ture of the man and woman whom she was to 
claim as father and mother, but who were in 
fact keepers of the slave den. She was told 
that if she did not learn this story and do as 
they told her they would kill her, but if she 
obeyed them they would get her a rich hus- 
band as a reward. The poor, deluded child, not 
knowing what was in store for her, learned her 
part so well, as did the others connected with it, 
that she was landed, and, as is usual in these 
cases, was kept in a family house for a few weeks, 
and then put into a vile den. From this den we 
rescued her a few weeks later, but not until we 
had made five unsuccessful efforts. — From a Mis- 
sionary in San Francisco. 

MEMORY TEST 

When and why did the acquisition of the 
Hawaiian Islands become important to our gov- 
ernment? 

How was Christianity sent to these islands? 

What is the history of mission work there? 

What are its results from the commercial 
standpoint? 

What races on the islands are in special need 
of missionary work? 

Describe the native Hawaiians; the Japanese 
and Chinese on the islands. 



98 UNDER OUR FLAG 

Where are the Chinese who can be reached 
by Home Missionary work? 

Describe the condition of many Chinese 
women and girls in San Francisco. 

How many women slaves are there in that 
city? 

How many little slave girls? 

Describe house-to-house visiting in China- 
town. 

Which is the more difficult, work for the Chi- 
nese in this country or in China? 

BIBLE LESSON 
» The Isles Wait for His Law 

From whence shall the redeemed of the Lord 
be gathered? (Isa. n: n.) 

Who shall join in the "new song"? (Isa. 
42: 10.) 

Over whom shall " the king's son " have do- 
minion? (Psalms J2\ 8, 10.) 

Whv are the islands to be glad? (Psalms 97: 

1.) 

Where shall the name of the Lord be glori- 
fied? (Isa. 24: 15.) 

How does the prophet illustrate the power of 
God? (Isa. 24: 15; 41: 5.) 

What prophecy may be put in the present 
tense to-day? (Isa. 42: 4.) 

What encouragements for missionary work 
are given by the prophet? (Isa. 51 : 5; 60: 9.) 



THE ORIENT 99 

What is the prophecy of final victory? (Zeph. 
2: ii.) 

GOD'S MESSENGERS 

(TUNE-Eltham.) 

Go, ye messengers of God, 

Like the beams of morning fly! 

Take the wonder-working rod, 
Wave the banner-cross on high. 

Go to many a tropic isle 

In the bosom of the deep, 
Where the skies forever smile, 

And the oppressed forever weep. 

O'er the pagan's night of care 
Pour the living light of heaven; 

Chase away his dark despair, 
Bid him hope to be forgiven. 



VI 

"OLD SETTLERS AND NEW" 

THE INDIANS 

"firiHE Japanese, the Mexicans, the Fili- 
pinos, the Mormons, even, are com- 
■*" parative strangers to us. But the 
Indians — oh, we know all about them! They 
live in wigwams or wickiups. We have seen 
them in would-be savage costume at the World's 
Fairs, ' Buffalo Bill ' has made us familiar with 
their war-dances — yes, and we know the splendid 
work done at Hampton and Carlisle. Surely 
there is no need of spending time in the study of 
Indian conditions." 

This thought, real though not always spoken, 
finds quick reply from the heart of one who 
really knows the present-day conditions of these, 
the " first families " of our land. " The right of 
eminent domain " is a pleasing phrase — when 
applied to ourselves. Said a little fellow in an 
Indian school, to his teacher: 

" Miss M., where you come from? " 

" Oh, I come from San Francisco," she re- 
plied. 

"No, where your mother come from?" 
100 



"OLD SETTLERS" 101 

Understanding then that the boy was ques- 
tioning of her ancestry, she said, " Oh, way back, 
we came from Holland." 

" Then you go back to Holland," said the 
lad. " Holland your country. United States be- 
longs to Indians." 

Of unfair and cruel dealings with the Indians 
detailed description need not be given here. The 
story is, alas, sadly familiar. A tardy sense of 
justice and the purpose to recognise the man- 
hood of the red man, seem at last to have en- 
tered into the dealings of the government with 
these, its wards. The gradual abolition of the 
reservation system and the opening of schools 
are omens of good. But in some of the locali- 
ties occupied by these, our reconccntrados, self- 
support is impossible, and for them special pro- 
vision must be made. As it takes time to ad- 
just matters of this sort, we are likely to realise 
the needs of reservation Indians for years to 
come. 

All who are truly interested in the welfare of 
the Indians must regret the opportunities given 
them to preserve and confirm their savage cus- 
toms and habits through their presentation as a 
part of a " show " — whether that " show " be a 
low-grade circus or an exposition. Not so are 
manhood and womanhood developed. 

Familiar as we may be with the ordinary type 
of Indians, and with the pressing need of Chris- 
tian work among them, there are others less fre- 



102 UNDER OUR FLAG 

quently brought to our notice, for whom little 
if any missionary work has been done. Let us 
note a few typical tribes. 

Along the southern boundary of the United 
States live the Pueblo Indians, a people practi- 
cally unreached, as yet, by missionary effort. 
Their dwellings are flat-roofed community 
houses, the second story built over the rear of 
the first, and reached only by ladders up which 
the women climb with brimming jars of water — 
often brought from miles away — or well-filled 
wheat baskets, on their heads. A fire-place in 
the middle of the floor has a hole in the roof 
as its outlet for smoke. This charred fire-place 
also serves for purposes of ventilation, as the 
windows are designed only for lighting. To 
reach these interiors one must mount a ladder 
to the roof of the first story, pass through a 
hatchway in the roof and down another ladder. 

Life seems little worth the living under such 
conditions. Yet these bronze men, with ban- 
danas on their foreheads and moccasins on their 
feet, have wrested success from even the bar- 
ren soil of the Painted Desert of Arizona, and 
forced corn crops from what seems capable of 
yielding only " scorching curses." 

In southern California are the Mission Indians, 
living among rocks and desert wastes in place of 
the good lands they formerly owned, feeding 
on grass, acorns and rats, when food is scarce. 

Look at the long line of vermilion-painted 



"OLD SETTLERS" 103 

women at the agency, their hair awry, their 
faces marred and furrowed with the traces left 
by savagery and its inevitable degradation of 
womanhood. See the eagerness of each to get 
a full supply of the rations of raw meat — enough 
for the needs of the family, enough to satisfy the 
husband who leaves the drudgery of living to 
his wife, enough so that none of her neighbors 
will get " ahead " of her. Mother-love, fear of 
failure, hunger, rivalry, are in their faces. 

Or go among the Navajos. They will not notice 
you, a stranger, nor would they were you of their 
own blood. That would be contrary to eti- 
quette. The prairie dogs will pay more atten- 
tion to your presence, for their restless eyes will 
spy you and their quick retreat into their holes 
will betray their fear. These are nomads, wan- 
dering with their sheep from place to place. Mis- 
sionary work among them has difficulties all its 
own. 

It takes time and patience, devotion and yearn- 
ing love that will not be baffled or driven back, 
to reach hearts like these. But that there are 
warm, true hearts beating under the unprom- 
ising exteriors, many a missionary can testify. 

" The saddest thing in all our dealing, as a 
nation, with the Indians, is the winning of their 
respect, their confidence, and even their rever- 
ence," says a missionary worker, " and then 
violating it. The hard thing in missionary work 
among them is not the dealing with their super- 



104 UNDER OUR FLAG 

stition and ignorance, but the striving to win 
back that which they have lost, to undo the 
influence of the miserable white men who have 
betrayed them." 

As among the Alaskans, belief in the power 
of the " medicine-man " dies hard, and forms 
one of the greatest obstacles to missionary 
work. 

The Indian theory seems to be, " We know 
our fathers were happy, but we do not know 
that we shall be happy if we adopt the white 
man's ways." Who can blame them? Would 
we not say the same thing ourselves in their 
place ? 

The difficulties surrounding an Indian lad, 
returning to the reservation from school, are 
well-nigh overwhelming. He is considered mean 
and selfish if he does not divide the contents of 
his trunk among his friends, though this, in itself, 
reduces him almost to the level of his associates 
by removing the possessions that are identified 
with his habits of civilised life. His people ex- 
pect him to don the dress of the " braves " 
around him, and to take up life where he dropped 
it on going away. The gift of a horse increases 
the temptation of the old, wild, unhampered ex- 
istence. 

Nor is it less difficult for the girl to adjust the 
two forms of life. She goes back to the wigwam 
or the hut, finding, in place of the school-mother 
in orderly attire and with neat working ways, a 



"OLD SETTLERS" 105 

squaw whose costume and habits she has almost 
forgotten. Her mother's hair looks as if it had 
never seen a comb; she wears a queer, bag- 
shaped sort of dress, with yards and yards of 
buckskin wrappings like bandages, for shoes 
and leggings. In place of the happy social life 
of the school the girl is ostracised unless she 
yield to the petitions of her friends, and, often, 
to the commands of her parents, and takes part 
in the barbaric festivities of the tribe. All her 
inherited instincts, all her filial devotion, all her 
social condition, are opposed to the maintenance 
of the new life she has learned, and savagery 
gets the better of civilisation unless she has 
strength of character, wisdom and tact beyond 
that possessed by the majority of even white 
schoolgirls. 

The school in daily touch with the home, save 
in exceptional cases, rather than a boarding- 
school to which the children are sent, and in 
whose atmosphere they can but become alienated 
from their natural environment — the home 
cleared and cleaned, and gradually changed from 
the adobe hogan or the crude wickiup, the pueblo 
or the wigwam, to a neat cabin or frame house 
— the church established and maintained by men 
and women who have learned in truth of the 
Great Spirit — these are the steps that will solve 
the Indian problem, and it rests upon Christian 
citizens to see that these steps are taken. 



106 UNDER OUR FLAG 



INDIAN LIFE AND CHARACTER 

The North American Indian was the highest 
type of pagan and uncivilised man. He pos- 
sessed not only a superb physique, but a remark- 
able mind. 

" Why do you not use all kinds of roots for 
medicines? " 

" Because the Great Mystery does not will us 
to find things too easily," answered the Indian. 
" There are many secrets that the Great Mystery 
will disclose only to the most worthy." 

Very early the Indian boy assumed the task of 
preserving and transmitting the legends of his 
ancestors and his race. Almost every evening 
a myth or a true story of some deed done in the 
past was narrated by one of the parents or grand- 
parents, while the boy listened with parted lips 
and glistening eyes. On the following evening 
he was usually required to repeat it. . . . As a 
rule, the Indian boy is a good listener, and has 
a good memory. . . . This sort of teaching at 
once enlightens the boy's mind and stimulates his 
ambition. " All the stoicism and patience of the 
Indian are acquired traits." 

I was made to respect the adults and especially 
the aged. I was not allowed to join in their 
discussions, nor even to speak in their presence 
unless requested to do so. . . . We were taught 



"OLD SETTLERS" 107 

generosity to the poor and reverence for the 
" Great Mystery." Religion was the basis of all 
Indian training. 

No young man was allowed to use tobacco in 
any form until he had become an acknowledged 
warrior, and had achieved a record. 

Grace at meals. — " Great Mystery, do thou 
partake of this venison and still be gracious." 

Young men treated to " spirit water " were 
ordered tied up and put into a lodge by them- 
selves to remain " till the evil spirit had 
gone away." — From " Indian Boyhood," by 
Dr. Charles A. Eastman, a full-blooded In- 
dian. 

There is profound pathos in the story told by a 
missionary of the way in which a threatened In- 
dian uprising and massacre were averted. The 
little garrison in the vicinity would have been 
powerless, and the situation began to be serious, 
when some bright official bethought himself to 
take " Captain John " to San Francisco that he 
might sec the sights and, incidentally, realise the 
power of the white man. The shrewd old chief 
learned the lesson well. Calling a council on his 
return, he said to the assembled braves, " White 
man too much. White man heap too much. 
Allee same sand by river. You takee some way, 
more come." 



108 UNDER OUR FLAG 

FROM THE CENSUS OF igOO. 

Indians (total number) 266, 760 

Arizona 26,480 

Montana u»343 

South Dakota .-. 20,225 

Oklahoma n,945 

Washington 10,239 

Indian Territory 52,500 

New Mexico I3,*44 

California I5>377 

Alaska 29,536 



HEATHENISM AND CHRISTIANITY 

" We regard the [native] religion of the In- 
dians as superstitious and heathenish, but they 
are earnest and sincere in it, and those are two 
of the highest requirements of any religion. The 
Hopi Indians, for instance, spend from four to 
sixteen days out of each month in the perform- 
ance of what they consider religious duties. . . . 
Even the dolls used by their children are made a 
means of teaching them a knowledge of their 
ancient religion. These are representations of 
their katchinas, mythical, semi-deified persons, 
from whom they are descended, and who are able 
to bring them much evil or good, and are there- 
fore to be prayed to, danced before, smoked to 
and generally propitiated." 

" We wish you could make us Christians," 
said some Indian boys to their teacher. " We 
want to be." 



"OLD SETTLERS" 109 

"Are Indian conversions genuine?" The 
question asked of a missionary received prompt 
reply: 

" If they were not they would not be con- 
versions." 

In proof of the statements made, she pro- 
ceeded to give the testimony of some of the mis- 
sion converts. Said an old woman, " When I 
in that church house I feel so different. I know 
Jesus come in my heart in that church house. 
He come in my heart, and He eoing stay there." 

An Indian girl lay dying. " I see man," she 
cried. " He good man. He stand this way " 
(raising her hands to represent outstretched, wel- 
coming arms). " He say, ' Come.' I go now. 
Good-bye." Who can doubt that for her, 
though of " the least of these," a place was 
waiting in the " many mansions "? 

" Work with the Indians is so pathetic," says 
a missionary. " There is such a look of wonder 
and amazement on their faces as they listen. 
The stories that are so old to us are so new to 
them. They seem to be saying, ' Why have we 
not heard of these things before? ' " 

Our modern civilisation as it touches primi- 
tive races too often imparts to them new vices 
and robs them of savage virtues. Christianity 
must be linked with civilisation to counteract 
this result." 



HO UNDER OUR FLAG 

A trader was closing his store when a Chris- 
tian Indian came, late Saturday night. " You 
come to-morrow," said the store-keeper. 

" To-morrow is the Sabbath," was the reply. 
" I don't buy on the Sabbath." 

Another Indian gave up a position as herder, 
saying to his employer, " I'm a Christian. I 
can't hear you swear." 

" Tell your people by the great fresh water 
and the great salt sea," said an Indian to the 
missionary, " to pray for the little baby you bap- 
tised, and that God will spare him and let him 
grow up to make a great talk for Jesus." 

Speaking of a tour he made to certain of the 
Indian reservations while Civil Service Commis- 
sioner, President Roosevelt said, " I had not 
gone there properly upon missionary work, in 
the narrowest sense of the term, but I got en- 
listed in missionary work rapidly, because, after 
all, any effort to try to further the cause of civic 
righteousness is missionary work, and the effort 
to see that the Indian got a square deal is, at any 
rate, an adjunct to missionary work. I spent 
twice the time I intended out there, because I 
became so interested; and I travelled all over the 
reservations to see what was being done, espe- 
cially by the missionaries, because it needed no 
time at all to see that the great factors in the up- 
lifting of the Indian were the men who were 



" OLD SETTLERS " ill 

teaching the Indian to become a Christian citi- 
zen." 



IN AN INDIAN PUEBLO 

Imagine a room twelve by fourteen feet in 
area, with ceiling so low as to be easily touched 
by the hands, black with smoke and very dirty. 
It is the under side of the flat roof, which is made 
of grass and mud thrown over poles laid cross- 
wise and a foot apart. Dry chips and dirt are 
continually dropping through the cracks, and the 
ceiling is a splendid place for wasps' and spiders' 
nests, with an occasional scorpion, centipede or 
tarantula to drop to the floor, and possibly a 
snake to crawl along the poles. 

Strips of meat hung for drying on lines stretch- 
ing across the room are covered thick with 
flies. The floor serves for dining-table as well as 
for beds. Water is brought by women in jars, 
manufactured by themselves, up the steep trail, 
and up and down the ladders; so skilful are they 
that they can run with these jars on their heads 
without breaking them or even spilling their 
contents. Bread is baked in ovens outside, and 
these are the favorite resorts of the dogs with 
which the pueblo abounds. 

Should the wife or daughter in such a dwelling 
— we cannot call it a home — chance to faint, she 
runs great risk of being buried alive, for the 
superstitious Indians know no difference be- 



112 UNDER OUR FLAG 

tween death and unconsciousness, and are so 
afraid of dead bodies that they get them out of 
the way as quickly as possible. 



SPANISH-SPEAKING PEOPLE 

Three and a half centuries is a longer lifetime 
than the most sanguine resident of New York 
or Chicago would prophesy for a " sky-scraper " 
built in accordance with the most approved prin- 
ciples of modern architecture. But in Santa Fe, 
the capital of a section richer in historic inter- 
est than almost any other in the United States, 
the tourist is shown a house of mud and adobe 
brick that had been standing fifty years when 
English colonists settled Jamestown! 

Back still for another hundred years — and for 
unknown time beyond — the Pueblo Indians 
fashioned their fort-like barracks, seeming part 
of the mesas amid which they are placed. Traces 
of a still older civilisation, and that of a high 
degree, were found when Cortez ravaged the 
country with fire and sword. 

New Mexico is to-day largely Spanish and 
Mexican, though under the flag of the stars and 
stripes. It is also Roman Catholic, in the main, 
its political center bearing the name it received 
in a baptism of blood — Santa Fe — Holy Faith. 

" For three hundred and fifty years the Ro- 
man Catholic church dominated New Mexico, 
and yet when Protestant missionaries entered 



"OLD SETTLERS" 113 

its valleys it was to find the people living in 
darkness, degradation and sin." " Does not the 
second commandment forbid idol worship?" 
questioned a missionary. 

" Certainly," was the reply. 

" Does it forbid making an image of Christ 
and worshipping that? " 

" Oh, no ; that is what everyone should do," 
answered the devout Catholic. On being rea- 
soned with, he retorted: 

" That is what comes of reading the Bible. 
The priest has always said we should get into 
all kinds of difficulties if we read it." 

With the padre demanding from five to one 
hundred dollars for tolling the bell at a funeral, 
and making other charges for religious services 
in proportion, churchly rites can have but slight 
effect upon the morals of the people. 

The " to-morrowness " of the Orientals, if we 
may coin a word, has firm hold of the Mexican 
mind, and the inertia of the tropics helps to 
render the field a difficult one for missionary 
effort. 

What of the homes? There is an Eastern 
quaintness in much of the Spanish life that is 
very pleasing, especially to the casual observer. 
There are houses of the well-to-do spread with 
carpets and Navajo rugs, gay with blossoming 
plants, their mistresses wearing the graceful 
mantilla as only a Spanish woman can wear it, 
offering coffee, chocolate or wine to their guests 



114 UNDER OUR FLAG 

with a cordiality all their own. Surely this is a 
paradise! 

Alas, there is another side! There are one- 
roomed huts of sticks covered with mud, with 
roofs and floors of mud, and these are typical of 
a large class of Mexican dwellings. The Spanish 
language contains no equivalent for our English 
word, home. The occupants of these houses sit, 
eat and sleep on the floor. The men and boys 
have the first chance at the meals, the women 
waiting upon them and taking what is left. Girls 
are married in absolute accord with the will of 
their parents, and often at thirteen years of age. 

How can a mother living with her large fam- 
ily in such an adobe hut, teach her daughter the 
lessons that belong to her sex, the arts of home- 
making and home-keeping? 

The statistics of illiteracy in this section are 
startling. In the cities there are excellent pub- 
lic schools. But the country districts are often 
so large that a pupil from the outskirts, mount- 
ing his burro early in the morning, must needs 
ride till mid-afternoon before reaching the 
schoolhouse. 

The native Mexicans, " ignorant as slaves, and 
more courteous than kings," " poor as Lazarus, 
and more hospitable than Croesus," are not the 
only race in New Mexico needing missionary 
help. There are 9000 Pueblo Indians there, 
peaceful, home-loving tillers of the soil, Catholics 
in the occasional church-going times, but " good 



" OLD SETTLERS " H5 

pagans " otherwise. In New Mexico and Ari- 
zona there are 10,000 Navajos, sullen, nomadic, 
horse-loving and horse-stealing vagrants, " pa- 
gans first, last and all the time." 

From such diverse elements as these, poured 
into the crucible of American life, what can 
come? Little of good for the nation unless fused 
by the white heat of love and shaped in the mould 
of a Christian civilisation. 

There is no essential difference between the 
needs of the Spanish-speaking people in New 
Mexico and those in Arizona and California. 
Racial characteristics and Romanism produce 
similar results wherever found, and the same sort 
of help is needed. 

THE PENITENTES 

" There are no real heathen in this country — 
at least, on this continent." Though the remark 
is not an infrequent one, the speaker shows but 
slight knowledge of conditions under our flag. 
Go through southern Colorado and New 
Mexico, along the valley of the Rio Grande and 
back among the hills — for hills have marvellous 
power in shutting away civilisation and Chris- 
tianity. Here are villages of adobe houses, a 
wooden cross standing in the centre of the plaza, 
and the spell of peace seeming to rest upon 
them. But wait until the beginning of Lent, 



116 UNDER OUR FLAG 

and then witness even the little that is permitted 
to the sight of the uninitiated. Blanketed forms 
creep through the twilight to the lonely morada, 
or brotherhood house. It is cold on these 
heights, but many of the participants are nude 
save for white cotton trousers to the knees — 
and they drag heavy wooden crosses. 

From the morada the penitents creep on hands 
and knees to the crucifix in the cemetery, and 
there scourge themselves with twisted ropes of 
the yucca fibre, or branches of the long-spined 
cactus. The blood on the walls around the 
crucifix testifies to the results. 

All night these torturing marches continue, 
and night after night, the culmination com- 
ing in Holy Week. On midnight of Thursday 
evening, after the most severe penances of all, 
the subject for crucifixion — a high honor — is 
chosen. Friday morning he is bound to a cross 
and left there until he swoons, or dies. 

After this experience, there is no limit to the 
evil a man may do, and yet receive priestly abso- 
lution. Four years of it releases one from fur- 
ther penance through life. 

This Brotherhood of Penitentes, or Flagellants, 
was introduced from Spain. Of course it reaches 
only the most ignorant of Mexicans, and it is 
but fair to say there is a movement in the Catho- 
lic church not only to discountenance, but to 
abolish it. But religious superstition, essential 
heathenism like this, dies hard. And, meanwhile, 



" OLD SETTLERS " 117 

these men are American citizens. Indeed, there 
is a touch of grim humor in the fact that there 
are Republican and Democratic mvradas. 

DANGER POINTS 

" Adulterated and unadulterated heathenism is 
at our doors, and about the cradle of its infancy 
hovers the cloud of mystery which for many 
gives their charm to Oriental mission iields." 

" It is hard for an American to realise the 
condition of the mass of poorer, uneducated 
Mexicans. They live an idle, aimless existence 
because they have nothing to do with. The 
women cannot sew because they have nothing 
to sew. They cannot cook much because they 
have nothing to cook. Many sit all day long, it 
may be, doing nothing, waiting for time to pass, 
helpless, because ignorance is always helpless." 

Stripped of much of its former wealth, and 
given to less ostentatious display, the Roman 
church is still far from spiritualised, and is the 
great menace to liberty in Spanish America. As 
a patriotic American it makes my blood tingle 
to recall that when the Pan-Americanists went, 
almost all of them, in a body to the shrine of 
Guadaloupe, after some of the American dele- 
gates with the rest had kissed the Archbishop's 
hand, the silken folds of our Stars and Stripes 
were laid upon the altar of a shrine which is a 



118 UNDER OUR FLAG 

notorious example of religious superstition and 
degradation. — Assembly Herald. 

The Mexicans in the United States are all 
citizens under our common flag. To lead them 
into the privileges of a heavenly citizenship is the 
aim of the work of the church. With the glow 
of the sunset-coast in our faces, and a larger hope 
in our hearts for the Spanish-speaking people, 
whose lives are taking on a color and richness 
only known under Gospel skies, may there not 
come a more golden realisation to the thousands 
waiting for the electric touch of generous gifts 
to Home Missions ? — Rev. D. E. Finks. 



SCHOOL PICTURES 

Maria, living back in the hills of New Mexico, 
thirty miles from any school, had to be sent 
home for lack of room in the school and of means 
for her support. Sent home to the life of a 
poverty-stricken, ignorant Mexican wife and 
mother, married at thirteen! And she begged 
for the chance to go to school ! 

Said a Catholic mother, " Make my daughters 
Protestants if you will, only take them. I can 
scarcely feed them, and as for school privileges 
they have none." 

Five girls from a tiny ranch away in the hills, 
" so unused to strangers that they hid like fright- 



" OLD SETTLERS " 119 

ened quails," yet mustered up courage enough 
to beg to be allowed to enter the school. 

They were bright-eyed, manly little fellows, 
who had walked five miles to school, and pro- 
posed to do so daily if only they might come so 
as to learn to read, like a companion who had 
been in school the previous year. How could 
they be turned away? 

" Two fathers," writes a missionary teacher, 
" begged to be allowed to enter the school. The 
other night I found one of our boys at his regu- 
lar task of helping one of these in arithmetic, by 
the light of a fagot fire, that the man might be in 
the boy's class when I could admit him." 

One frequently sees the children on the way to 
mission school carrying two or three sticks 
of wood apiece, with their books. Unable to pay 
money, they furnish the wood for their tuition, 
their fathers sending it in this way instead of 
bringing a wagonload at a time. 

An old man present at the dedication of a mis- 
sion school begged that one might be opened in 
his village. He was told that perhaps sometime 
the Board would be able to do so. " Sometime," 
he replied, with tears in his eyes, " sometime I be 
dead! " 

The old men and the young men, the women 
and the children, stretch out earnest hands from 
the very Valley of the Shadow, pleading for 



120 UNDER OUR FLAG 

Christian succor and cheer. Shall we turn away 
with indifference and pay no heed to their cry? 

If you could see a dirty, procrastinating, un- 
trained Mexican boy transformed by this school 
life into the tidy, dish-washing, bed-making, care- 
taking, studious, Bible-loving, hymn-singing, 
wide-awake schoolboy, you would know what it 
is that justifies this string of adjectives, and the 
money spent on this school. And you would 
want to help all the rest of the poor, school-less, 
Christless Mexican boys to find home care and 
practical Christian training that shall make them 
citizens worthy of such a country as our own. 
Is there anything more patriotic that women can 
undertake as a measure of saving their country? 
— From a Visitor to a Presbyterian School in 
New Mexico. 



PORTO RICO AND THE PHILIPPINES 

Said a small boy, drawing his conclusion from 
the study of recent history, " Seems to me the 
United States is getting her land too much scat- 
tered around." Whether we agree with the 
youngster or not, the fact remains that Home 
Missions have expanded with the expansion of 
the nation, crossing oceans and seas, and reach- 
ing halfway around the world. 

That which may be said of Porto Rico applies, 
to a large extent, to the Philippine Islands, as 



" OLD SETTLERS " 121 

well — only, in the latter, there is the added re- 
sponsibility of a native population differing from 
ourselves even more widely in race and concep- 
tions of life than the natives of the Caribbean isl- 
and. To all intents and purposes, missionary 
work among the Filipinos is foreign work, in 
spite of the protection of our flag. 

In both Porto Rico and the far Eastern isl- 
ands, the Roman Catholic church had her op- 
portunity, and lost it. In four hundred years of 
possession Spain did not erect a single school- 
house in Porto Rico. That fact alone is an in- 
dex to the needs and conditions of the island 
to-day. When it came into the possession of the 
United States, but ten out of one hundred of its 
people could read and but six out of one hundred 
could write. The Spanish-American War, fol- 
lowed by the study of conditions in Cuba and 
Porto Rico, has forever disposed of the flimsy 
argument, " Better leave people alone. They're 
not responsible if they don't hear the Gospel — 
and are as well off." 

About one-third of the inhabitants of Porto 
Rico are young people between the ages of five 
and sixteen. Two-thirds of the native popula- 
tion are women. In the United States, exclusive 
of its colonial possessions, there are twenty in- 
habitants to the square mile. In the Philippine 
Islands, sixty. In Porto Rico, two hundred and 
seventy! 

Porto Rico is a land of perpetual sunshine — 



122 UNDER OUR FLAG 

of bananas, beans and black coffee as the staple 
food of its people — of shacks built on stilts, with 
stables beneath, as the dwellings of its country 
folk — of poverty in the extreme, where work 
is considered a disgrace and self-indulgence is 
the order of the day. 

The village and city homes of the poorer 
classes are little better than the country shacks. 
" The women," says a missionary worker there, 
" may be divided into upstairs and downstairs 
women. The better class live on the second 
floor, and the visitor stumbles over washing tubs 
and charcoal braziers in the halls. A necklace 
is the ' dressed-up ' costume of the downstairs 
child." 

Poverty presses to an extent of which we can 
have little idea. It is not at all unusual to keep 
children at home from school for the lack of food 
to satisfy their hunger. A missionary on the 
island gives the following vivid picture of her 
work : 

" Miss and I go into dens every day 

where the sunlight has never entered, neither 
broom nor water. Whole families live in these 
dark rooms. At night they shut the door — there 
are no windows. The patio is surrounded by 
small rooms, all opening into it. Crowds of 
people live in each patio, and there are tubs 
everywhere, and screaming, smoking women, 
naked children, and loafing men. It strongly 
reminds me of pictures of the Inferno. There is 



"OLD SETTLERS" 123 

one cistern, which all use. The waste water is 
thrown on the pavement, and it is wet and sloppy 
everywhere, and smells! I'm learning to hold 
my breath instead of breathing deeply. I try 
to see how little I can breathe and still get along. 
The people follow us around the patio, and carry 
chairs for us. A family is lucky if it has one 
chair. 

" Our waiter is really very funny, and amuses 
us very much. One day as he was starting for 
the kitchen with a tray of tottering dishes he 
remarked — in Spanish, of course — ' Well, I don't 
know whether I will get there or not, but, after 
all, God is great and over all.' He got there." 

There is pitiful need of hospitals for the poor 
and of training in the simplest matters of sani- 
tation. The missionary physician finds treat- 
ment rendered vastly more difficult than at home 
by reason of the native prejudice against fresh 
air and baths. While the windows may be 
opened, possibly, during his visit, he is morally 
certain they will be shut as soon as he leaves, 
especially if it is a case of fever! 

But more than anything else, Porto Rico and 
the Philippines need to-day the gospel of clean, 
pure lives. The exorbitant charges of the priests 
have placed even the ordinary ceremonies of 
civilisation beyond the reach of the majority of 
the people. Marriage costs from $25 to $250. 
One-tenth of a man's income is claimed by the 
priest, and masses and other churchly functions 



124 UNDER OUR FLAG 

are equally high-priced. The more intelligent 
of the people have lost faith in Catholicism. It 
remains for us to teach them faith in Chris- 
tianity. 

As a matter of course, Protestant work meets 
opposition. A small girl who had attended a 
mission sewing-school sent word she could not 
come any more because they did not believe in 
God at the school, and there would be no salva- 
tion for her. The child, of course, but echoed 
the words of the priest. 

" It seems to me all great men are Ameri- 
cans," said a Porto Rican lad. Unfortunately 
for the life that we wish to see develop in the 
beautiful " Gem of the Antilles/' the boy's state- 
ment will not bear reversal. Not all the Ameri- 
cans he sees are " great men," nor even good 
men. As is always the case, there is a large 
element among the new-comers that is not rep- 
resentative of the best types of the American 
nation. The work of Christ must be strength- 
ened and enlarged with special reference to 
Americans on the island — for to them the Porto 
Ricans look as examples. When, too, there is 
sufficient missionary work for the people with 
whom we have thus far been brought into inti- 
mate contact in the Philippines, we shall but 
have touched the outer fringe of the inhabitants 
of the archipelago. As Christians, do we be- 
lieve that the soul of a Mohammedan devotee 
in Sulu or Mindanao is worth as much as our 



"OLD SETTLERS" 125 

own? " Beginning at Jerusalem," where are 

the outer borders of our commission from the 
blessed Christ? 



PORTO RICAN PICTURES 

Said a Porto Rican mother, " I believe much 
in God. I like very much this religion. My 
two daughters and all my family wish to enter 
with me into the church. But I must be married 
first. I have lived twenty-two years with the 
father of my children. I am ashamed to tell the 
pastor. I want you to tell him. Do you think 
when I am married God will pardon my sins?" 

" A pretty young girl of seventeen," says the 
principal of a Porto Rican school, " walks 
twenty miles to and from the school daily, sleeps 
on a bare floor, and is so poor that she must beg 
nearly all her food." 

" I see very clearly," said an intelligent Catho- 
lic, " that you Protestants are friends of educa- 
tion, and your chief weapon is the enlightenment 
of the people. Why, your very churches are 
schools for your congregations!" This is the 
thing that strikes these people most forcibly, 
the fact that all lines of Protestant missionary 
work are in their very nature educational. 

" There is among the Porto Ricans an idea 
that air in a sickroom is certain death, and as we 



126 UNDER OUR FLAG 

visit our sick, we are almost prostrated as we 
enter the apartment that has been scrupulously 
closed to all light and air. Native physicians 
tell their patients that they will not treat their 
cases unless the rooms are thus kept closed — and 
that in a climate where it is perpetual summer. 
So also as to the use of water. It is feared by 
many as death itself. The filthy practices that 
are in vogue among the people in cases of sick- 
ness, due to superstition or ignorance, defy all 
credence. The only possible way to combat 
these things is through a medical missionary 
who shall be a teacher and a preacher of good 
sense and sound Gospel." 

A boy in a Porto Rican school who modestly 
admitted he could speak some English, said, 
" I am learning many things in this school. I 
like best the story of Abraham Lincoln. He was 
a poor boy like me and lived in a log cabin as 
poor as mine. But he was honest and earnest 
and became the saviour of his country. I mean 
to work so hard that I may become of use to my 
country." — The Congregationalist. 

Profoundly pathetic is the story that comes to 
us from the Spanish-American mission field of a 
little boy who so loved and revered his teachers 
that he sought to conceal from them his place of 
abode, deeming it unfit for such superior beings 
to enter! Think what innate cleanness and 



"OLD SETTLERS'' 127 

longing for higher things this suggests. Truly 
we know not what we do when we carry light 
and help to these " little ones/' of whom our 
Lord declared, " Of such is the kingdom." — 
Woman's Home Missions. 

The poor people of Porto Rico are making 
unusual sacrifices to educate their children. No 
compulsory law is necessary. Attendance is 
higher in percentage than in any State of the 
Union except Massachusetts, which State ex- 
ceeds Porto Rico only by one per cent. Hundreds 
of children carry their shoes and stockings to and 
from school in their arms. It is a common 
experience to see the pupils at dismissal leave the 
school, sit down by the roadside, remove shoes 
and stockings and climb rugged and jagged 
mountain trails barefooted to save the shoes and 
thus prolong their use. I know women who sit 
on the river rocks all day and every day wash- 
ing clothes to keep their children in school. 

In the mountain district above Corozal a boy 
was found in school wearing a peculiar shirt — 
at least four times his size. Upon inquiry it 
was learned that the boy had only one shirt and 
that one was being washed. That the boy 
might not miss a day in school his father gave 
the son his only shirt. The father that day, 
naked to the waist, carried a case of mer- 
chandise on his head over the mountains, under 
the palms, in a fierce tropic sun, a distance of 



128 UNDER OUR FLAG 

twenty miles and return, that his son might 
learn. And the father's shirt on his son's back 
bore the legend " Pillsbury's XXX " ! 

At Juncos I saw a boy in school who was un- 
usually self-conscious and who, in moving about 
from class to seat, never turned his back to me. 
Inquiry of the teacher told the story. The boy 
was finally to pass to another room, and my 
teacher-friend's explanation led me to watch. 
As the boy passed out I saw that all the shirt he 
had in this world was on the front of his body! 
Hiding the shame of his poverty, there he was in 
school, dressed only in a pair of tattered trou- 
sers and half a shirt. He was to me a genuine 
little patriot, pressing his face to the light and 
pushing his half-naked body forward in the 
movement for the uplifting of himself and his 
beautiful island home. — The Congregationalist. 

MEMORY TEST 

Why is missionary work necessary among the 
Indians ? 

Describe the Pueblo Indians and their homes ; 
the Mission Indians. 

Describe Indian women as seen at a distribution 
of rations. 

What is the greatest hindrance to missionary 
work among the Indians ? 

Why should there be good schools on the reser- 
vations ? 



"OLD SETTLERS" 129 

What lessons are taught the Indian boy ? 
What is said about the native religion of the 
Indians ? 

Do they become genuine Christians ? 

Where is the oldest house in our country, and 
when was it built? 

Of what older civilisation have records been 
found ? 

What are the results of Roman Catholicism in 
New Mexico? 

Describe the homes of native Mexicans in 
this country. 

Describe the rites of the Penitentes. 

Give school pictures of the Spanish-speaking 
people. 

What added responsibility comes to our coun- 
try with the acquisition of Porto Rico and the 
Philippines ? 

In what condition was education in Porto Rico 
under the Spaniards? 

Describe the homes of the poorer classes in 
Porto Rico. 

What lessons of purity are needed in Porto 
Rico, and why? 

Tell about children in Porto Rican schools. 



130 UNDER OUR FLAG 

BIBLE LESSON 

" Beginning at Jerusalem " 

Study Home Mission work for foreigners, as 
described in the book of Acts. Note 

The nationalities reached on the Day of Pente- 
cost. Acts 2:9-11. 
The act of an immigrant convert. Acts 4: 

36-37. 

A foreigner made steward in the church. 

Acts 6 : 5. 
The relation of foreigners to the first Christian 

martyr. Acts 6 : 9. 
Paul's sermons in the presence of the Roman 

guard. Acts 21 : 37-40; 22; 23 ; 1-10. 

THY KINGDOM COME. 

(Tune— Missionary Chant.) 

Lord, when we pray, " Thy kingdom come," 
Then fold our hands without a care 

For souls whom Jesus died to save, 
We do but mock Thee with our prayer. 

Thou couldst have sent an angel band 
To call Thy straying children home, 

And thus, through heavenly ministries, 
On earth Thy kingdom might have come. 

But since to human hands like ours 

Thou hast intrusted work divine, 
Oh, let our eager hearts make haste 

To join their feeble powers with Thine; 



«« OLD SETTLERS " 131 

To sow the seed in every soil; 

To bring the word of life to men; 
To give as Thou to us hast given, 

Hoping for no reward again. 

All this to do, while in our thought 
No pride or vain self -trust finds room, 

This is to pray, with honest heart 
And purpose true, "Thy kingdom come." 

— Helen G. Rice. 



VII 

MORMONISM AND THE MORMONS 

THE limitations of space forbid anything 
more than a brief outline of the inception 
of Mormonism and the character of its 
founder. A Mormon poet (?) says: 

" Vermont, a land much famed for hills and snows 
And blooming cheeks, may boast the honor of 
The Prophet's birthplace." 

The " honor " seems somewhat doubtful, since 
the best that his Mormon biographer can say 
of Joseph Smith is that " he could read with- 
out difficulty and write a very imperfect hand, 
and had a very limited understanding of the ele- 
mentary rules of arithmetic. These were his 
highest and only attainments, while the rest of 
those branches so universally taught in the com- 
mon schools through the United States were en- 
tirely unknown to him." His father was accus- 
tomed to boast of Joseph as the " genus " of the 
family. 

Moving to western New York while Joseph 

was quite young, the family led a curious, vaga- 

bondish existence, the use of divining rods and 

the digging for supposed treasures being the 

133 



MORMONISM 133 

favorite occupations of father and son. The 
mother should not be overlooked in any study 
of Mormonism, for it is evident that she aided 
and urged this son — apparently her favorite — to 
such an extent that she has claim to be consid- 
ered the real founder of the infamous system 
whose basis is the degradation of womanhood. 
From the evil she wrought for the women of 
Mormonism, the hands of Christian women must 
rescue them. 

Mormonism began with the alleged finding 
of mysterious golden plates, the discovery being 
accompanied by " revelations." The whole story 
hinges upon the testimony of Joseph Smith, 
whose word was less than worthless among his 
neighbors of the respectable sort. The " revela- 
tions " became of marked value in the establish- 
ment of the system. When the first " transla- 
tion " of the plates was stolen, and Smith did not 
dare to attempt a duplicate lest, unfortunately, 
there be comparison with the original, it was 
" revealed " to him that he should take another 
portion, " a more particular account," from the 
" plates of Nephi," as that first used had been 
" altered through the agency of Satan." 

The crude, incoherent, complex result which 
was destined to form the Book of Mormon — the 
Mormon Bible — went begging for a publisher, 
in spite of Smith's assurance that this one, or 
that, would undertake it. But a " revelation " 
accounted for the non-fulfilment of those previ- 



134 UNDER OUR FLAG 

ously received by saying, " Some revelations are 
of God, some are of man, and some are of the 
devil " — a statement we may all be willing to ac- 
cept. Alas! no rule was given by which either 
could be identified. For this we must go to an 
older authority, and read, " By their fruits ye 
shall know them." 

Certain it is that Mormons were left no choice 
concerning such " revelations " as those ordering 
that a house should be built for Smith, or declar- 
ing the " will of the Lord " in regard to elections. 
On September n, 1831, Smith announced that 
it had been " revealed " to him that the Mor- 
mons were " the Lord's agents, and as such had 
the right to take what they chose and pay as they 
chose." There were sixteen " revelations " in 
1829, thirty-five in 183 1, and so on, with vary- 
ing numbers, until in 1845 there were but two— 
but these proclaimed the doctrine of polygamy. 
In his last days Smith was allowed to issue 
" revelations " only after they had been censored 
by the Church Council. They had become too 
convenient even for Mormons. 

Smith made careful provision for his father 
by constituting him a Patriarch, a position that 
enabled him to sell his " blessings " at what we 
may suppose to have been a good profit. In 
1875 these were openly advertised at $2 apiece. 
Whether there were wholesale rates, or bargain 
days, does not appear. 

The followers of Joseph Smith claim to hold 



MORMON ISM 135 

the Bible in equal honor with the Book of Mor- 
mon. But their editions of the sacred volume 
contain curious interpolations and changes. As 
a single illustration, take the addition made to 
the fiftieth chapter of Genesis: 

" That seer will I bless, and they that seek to 
destroy him shall be confounded, ... for his 
name shall be called Joseph, and he shall have 
judgment and shall write the word of the 
Lord." 

More than three thousand changes have been 
made in the Book of Mormon since it was first 
issued — changes in grammar, chronology, geog- 
raphy and Bible history. The words " Carefully 
revised by translator," on the title-page of an 
edition, are suggestive, to say the least. 

" How can honest people, earnest people, peo- 
ple who have professed to be followers of the 
Lord Jesus Christ, accept such doctrines, be the 
victims of such barefaced imposture?" The 
question is a natural one, and yet we may not 
mock at the credulity of the Mormons when we 
remember, for instance, the annual " cures " at 
the shrine of a Roman Catholic saint in New 
York City. Human nature is a singular com- 
pound, and most of us are very human, when all 
is said and done. " Let him that thinketh he 
standeth take heed lest he fall." 

Three things constitute the power of Mor- 
monism: the iron hand of the church, the steady 
and continuous extension of the system into con- 



136 UNDER OUR FLAG 

tiguous States, and its proselyting in other sec- 
tions of this country and in other lands. 

One chief element in the almost perfect con- 
trol that the church has over its members lies in 
its equally complete control of the means, and 
even of the necessities, of life. Utah is in the arid 
section of the continent, and agriculture is pos- 
sible only through an elaborate system of irri- 
gation — controlled by the church. Co-operative 
stores, managed by the church, must be patron- 
ised by the Mormons under dire penalties. An 
apostate Mormon finds himself under the ban of 
a boycott more severe than trades unions have 
ever conceived. Said Brigham Young, as offi- 
cially quoted in the Journal of Discourses, Vol. 
IV, p. 31 : 

" The moment a person decides to leave 
this people, he is cut off from every object that is 
desirable for time and eternity. Every posses- 
sion and object of affection will be taken from 
those who forsake the truth, and their identity 
and existence will eventually cease." 

Tithing is a continuous test of loyalty, and 
is carried out to a minute degree. One-tenth 
of the original value of property is paid in tithes, 
to begin with. One-tenth of all its increase 
must follow, at stated intervals, and for every 
nine days' work there must be one day's service 
for the church, the requirement extending even 
to beasts of labor. (See statement by Brigham 
Young, in address in Salt Lake City, Sept. 8, 



MORMONISM 13V 

1850. Reported in The Millennial Star, Vol. 
XIII, p. 21.) 

In 1878 the tithes of the Mormon church 
amounted to $1,000,000 a year. The total tithes 
during the administration of Brigham Young 
were $15,000,000. No report is required of the 
vast sum thus raised. The people are told that 
the payment is essential " to secure a future resi- 
dence in the heaven they are seeking after." It 
must seem a literal " laying up treasures in 
heaven " to those who believe implicitly in the 
word of the priesthood. 

Religious statistics have not yet been collated 
from the returns of the last census. The census 
of 1890 gave the Mormon population of Utah as 
118,201. (Estimated number of adherents in all 
countries, 300,000.) The following figures, also 
from the census of 1890, indicate the workings of 
the policy of expansion, one of the chief elements 
in Mormon strategy: 

Mormons All Churches 

New Mexico 456 105,749 

Idaho 14.972 24,036 

Arizona 6, 500 26,972 

Nevada 525 5,877 

Wyoming 1,336 11,705 

Colorado 1,762 86,837 

No more impressive statement of the peril to 
the government of the United States from the ex- 
tension of Mormonism can be given. It is first, 



138 UNDER OUR FLAG 

last, and always, for its church. Its political af- 
filiations swing from party to party at the man- 
date of the church. For years it has been 
stealthily working to secure the balance of power 
in other States. It " has ever in view objects 
rather than methods." Brigham Young's con- 
tinuous cry was to be let alone. 

" In a few years," said an official orator in a 
Fourth of July address, " there will be no United 
States government, for the Mormon church will 
be the head of the nation." Feb. 15, 1844, the 
Times and Seasons announced Joseph Smith as its 
Presidential candidate, and kept his name thus 
before the people until his death. The example 
was followed by The Neighbor, another Mormon 
paper. When next the Mormon hierarchy 
names its candidate for this high office, he will 
have the backing, unless present conditions are 
changed, of at least five States. " Mormon am- 
bition," says an apostate Mormon, a grandson of 
Brigham Young, " is broad as the world and 
deep as simple faith. It seeks only its own ends, 
defying human judgment and claiming authority 
from God." 

Mormonism makes practically no proselytes 
among its Gentile neighbors. Its progress is 
the result of its persistent missionary work. In 
1901 officers of the Mormon church claimed that 
from 1400 to 1900 emissaries of the " Church of 
the Latter-Day Saints " were in the field. The 
East is permeated with their influence. They 



MORMON ISM 139 

enter a Christian church in Harlem (N. Y.), and 
their specious arguments capture members and 
officers of its Christian Endeavor Society, who 
forthwith emigrate to Utah ; they call from house 
to house in Pennsylvania, and even the descend- 
ants of Scotch Covenanters are not proof against 
their wiles ; they penetrate the coves of the Blue 
Ridge and the Alleghanies, seeming angels of 
light to the secluded inhabitants. They take 
service in families, the better to carry forward 
their work. A Mormon butler actually induced 
sixty servant girls to go to Utah by the promise 
of husbands and homes. 

The English manufacturing towns are a prom- 
ising field. The people are ignorant, supersti- 
tious and poor, and the offer of a building lot, 
or a farm, is very attractive. In the six years 
beginning with 1840, 3750 Mormon immigrants 
came from Great Britain alone. No law can 
prevent this unless the incomers admit that they 
are polygamists — and that contingency, of course, 
is carefully guarded against. In fact, the doc- 
trine of polygamy is usually kept in the back- 
ground, if not denied, until the new convert 
reaches Utah. " When we dare," said an 
apostle, speaking of missionary work in Japan, 
" we preach the doctrine of plural marriage." 

A slight possibility of relief in this direction 
lies in the fact that the supply of government land 
in Utah is now exhausted, and this constitutes a 
strong reason for colonisation elsewhere. The 



140 UNDER OUR FLAG 

fact that such extension has already begun in 
Mexico can but rouse sympathy and anxiety for 
our sister republic. 

Of the blasphemy of Mormonism and the un- 
speakable horrors of the doctrine of polygamy, 
the direct and cruel enemy of the home, the words 
of Mormons themselves are the best evidence. 
Instead of enlarging upon these here, liberal 
quotations concerning them are given at the end 
of the chapter. 

"No woman," says a Mormon document, "can 
be perfect without a man to lead her. ... A man 
cannot be saved without a woman at his side." 
The principal doctrines of the Mormon church 
are more or less directly connected with this state- 
ment. Polygamy is based on the theory that the 
more wives (and children) acquired here, the 
more honor and power will a man have in the 
next world. " What do you find in the Book of 
Mormon more than you can get in the Bible ? " 
The question was addressed to a prominent 
Mormon, and his reply, unconsciously, perhaps, 
gave the keynote of the whole system. 

" Oh, the kingdom that is promised to every 
man." 

But no " kingdom " is promised to woman. 
For her there is simply the negative assurance 
that only if " married " here and " sealed " to 
some man for the hereafter, can she be saved. A 
man may have " sealed " to him women whom he 
can never know, as Queen Victoria, for instance, 



MORMONISM HI 

was made the prospective partner of many a 
Mormon in the other world. " All over Mor- 
mondom are pious old widows, or wives of Gen- 
tile apostates, who hope to rise in the last day and 
claim a celestial share in Brigham Young." 

Baptism for the dead is also a taking doctrine. 
Families may be thus baptised by the wholesale, 
ensuring for those in whose name the rite is ob- 
served all the privileges of Paradise — and inci- 
dentally, as is always the case in ceremonies of 
the Mormon church, paying well for the privi- 
lege. 

With Mormons occupying the places of judge, 
and advocate and jurors, there is slight hope of 
conviction in any accusation of polygamy against 
a Mormon. The only chance for the civil re- 
demption of the womanhood of Utah — and its 
manhood, as well — lies in a constitutional amend- 
ment making plural marriage a crime against 
national law, and thus giving Federal courts 
jurisdiction even within the State of Utah. 
Against such an amendment all the power of the 
Mormon hierarchy, and all the influence it can 
bring to bear — political, mercantile, and railroad 
— will be exerted, as it means the death-blow to 
the distinctive doctrine of the Mormon religion. 
The language of Governor Wells, in vetoing an 
act of the Utah legislature, March 14, 190 1, shows 
the chief dread of Mormonism : " I have every 
reason to believe this enactment would be the 
signal for a general demand upon the National 



H2 UNDER OUR FLAG 

Congress for a constitutional amendment directed 
solely against certain conditions here — a demand 
which, under the circumstances, would assuredly 
be complied with." 

" Did not Utah promise, when admitted to 
Statehood, to do away with polygamy ? " 

Certainly. The constitution of the State, 
adopted in May, 1895, says, " Polygamy or plural 
marriages are forever prohibited." In 1890, the 
president of the church issued a proclamation 
(not a " revelation ") which struck out polygamy 
as a necessary belief and practice. This was 
justified to Mormons as called forth by the 
" perseverance of their enemies," and to this state- 
ment was added, " That which is not fulfilled will 
be." A Mormon elder says, " The polygamists 
who have become so since the law forbade it are 
as truly heroes as was Washington. We honor 
them and will stand by them. Persecution only 
shows their worthiness." 

The author of " The Story of the Mormons," 
an invaluable book on this subject, writes: 

" Only the certainty of continued exclusion 
from the rights of citizenship, and the hopeless- 
ness of securing the long-desired prize of State- 
hood for Utah, finally induced the church to bow 
to the inevitable and to announce a form of re- 
lease for its members from the duty of marrying 
more wives than one. . . . The doctrine is simply 
held in abeyance. It must be remembered that 
it is a part of the doctrine of polygamy that one 



MORMONISM 143 

can enter heaven only if ' sealed ' to some devout 
member of the church, * for time and eternity,' 
and that the space around the earth is filled with 
spirits seeking ' tabernacles of clay ' by means of 
which they may obtain salvation." 

A constitutional amendment giving power to 
Federal officers to enforce the law against polyg- 
amy whenever public sentiment is so perverted 
that local officers are powerless, is necessary for 
the safety of the nation. But only the gospel 
of the Lord Jesus Christ can rescue souls en- 
snared in the Satanic net of Mormonism. 



MORMON STATEMENTS 

A lie is righteous when it can serve the church. 
— Brigham Young. 

Girls, do not forget polygamy. You cannot 
practice it now, but keep it alive in your hearts, 
and remember there are four girls to every boy in 
Utah. — Editorial Statement in the Organ of the 
Young Women of Utah. 

Adam is our God, and the only God with whom 
we have to do. When he came into the Garden 
of Eden, he came into it with a celestial body, and 
brought Eve, one of his wives, with him. — From 
an Address by Brigham Young, in the Tab- 
ernacle, Salt Lake City, 185.?. Published in the 
Journal of Discourses. 



144 UNDER OUR FLAG 

We did not reveal celestial marriage. We can- 
not withdraw or renounce it. God revealed it 
and He has promised to maintain it and to bless 
those who obey it. If any man or woman expects 
to enter into the celestial kingdom of our God 
without making sacrifices and without being 
tempted to the very uttermost, they have not un- 
derstood the Gospel. . . . 

Who would suppose that Congress would 
enact a law which would present the alternative 
to religious believers of being consigned to the 
penitentiary if they should attempt to obey the 
law of God which should deliver them from dam- 
nation? — An Epistle from the First Presidency 
to the Officers and Members of the Church, Oct. 
6, i88 5 . 

Whether the doctrine of the plurality of wives 
is true or false is none of their business. We 
have as good a right to adopt tenets in our 
religion as the Church of England, or the Metho- 
dists, or the Baptists, or any other denomina- 
tion. — Brigham Young, as quoted in Journal of 
Discourses, Vol II, pp. 187-188. 

I believe that they will not under our present 
form of government (I mean the government of 
the United States) try us for treason if believing 
and practising our religious notions and ideas. I 
think, if I am not mistaken, that the Constitution 
gives the privilege to all the inhabitants of this 



MORMONISM 145 

country of the free exercise of their religious 
notions, and the freedom of their faith for the 
practice of it. But if it can be proved to a dem- 
onstration that the Latter-Day Saints have 
actually embraced as a part and portion of their 
religion the doctrine of the plurality of wives, it 
is constitutional. And should there ever be laws 
enacted by this government to restrict them from 
the free exercise of their religion, such laws must 
be unconstitutional. — Orson Pratt, in an Address 
at a Church Conference, Aug. 28, 1852. See 
Deseret News, extra, Sept. 14, 1852. 

In the spiritual world we will go to Brother 
Joseph, and he will say to us, " Come along, my 
boys. We will get you a good suit of clothes. 
Where are your wives?" 

" They are back yonder. They would not fol- 
low us." 

" Never mind," says Joseph. " Here are thou- 
sands; have all you want." — H. C. Kimball, in an 
Address in the Tabernacle, Salt Lake City, Feb. 
1, 1857. Journal of Discourses, Vol. IV, p. 209. 

No man in Utah who already has a wife and 
who may desire to obtain another, has any right 
to make any proposal of marriage to a lady until 
he has consulted the president of the whole 
church and through him obtained a revelation 
from God as to whether it would be pleasing in 
His sight. — The Seer, Vol. I, p. jr. 



146 UNDER OUR FLAG 

As a people we view every revelation from God 
as sacred. Polygamy was none of our seeking. 
It came to us from heaven, and we recognised it, 
and still do, as the voice of Him whose right it 
is not only to to teach us, but to dictate and teach 
all men. — Deseret News, 1865. 

Seem always to obtain information from your 
husbands, especially before company, though you 
may pose as a simpleton. Never forget that the 
wife owes all her importance to her husband. — 
From Maxims for Mormon Wives, in Deseret 
News. 

The nature of the message in the Book of 
Mormon is such that if true none can be saved 
who rejects it, and if false none can be saved who 
receives it. — Orson Pratt. 

Every spirit that confesses that Joseph Smith 
is a prophet, that he lived and died a prophet, and 
that the Book of Mormon is true, is of God ; and 
every spirit that does not, is of anti-Christ. — 
Brigham Young, in an Address at Nauvoo, Oct., 
1844. 

A man marrying many wives " cannot commit 
adultery, for they are given unto him; for he 
cannot commit adultery with that which belongeth 
unto him and to no one else." — Book of Doctrines 
and Covenants, Sec. 132. 



MORMONISM 147 

The Mormons claim that " in conceding the 
cognisance of the marriage relation as. within 
the province of church regulation," they are 
" practically in accord with all other Christian 
denominations." 

In a " revelation," Joseph Smith declared that 
marriages " not by me nor by my word," were 
invalid in the other world, and the parties thereto 
could not be " gods " there by reason of their vio- 
lation of law here, but " must remain separately 
and singly, without exaltation," being " minister- 
ing servants to minister for those who are worthy 
of a far more and an exceeding and an eternal 
weight of glory." — Book of Doctrines and Cov- 
enants, Sec. 132. — A " Revelation " given July 
12, 1843. 

Concerning the " revelation " of the " duty " 
of plural marriage, an English paper (The Mil- 
lennial Star, Liverpool, January, 1853) said that 
no " other revelation " had ever had the power 
so "to shake to its centre the very social structure 
which has been reared and vainly nurtured by 
this professedly Christian generation, none more 
conclusively exhibits how surely the end must 
come to all works, institutions, ordinances and 
covenants of man ; none more portrays the 
eternity of God's purpose ; and we may say none 
has carried so mighty an influence, or had the 
power to stamp the divinity upon the mind by 



148 UNDER OUR FLAG 

absorbing every feeling of the soul, to the extent 
of this." 



" Mr. Young, may I say to the President that 
you intend to observe the laws under the Con- 
stitution ? " 

" Well, yes, we intend to." 

" But may I say to him that you will do so? " 

" Yes, yes, so far as the laws are just, cer- 
tainly." — From an Interview between Senator 
Trumbull and Brigham Young, in July, 1889. 
Reported in Alt a California. 

" Do you believe that Jesus Christ had wives, 
and where do you get your authority for so be- 
lieving." 

" I can answer that question only by asking 
another. When a man is sick, who is the natural 
one to take care of him? " 

" His mother, sister, or wife, if he has one." 

" Who were first at the sepulchre to care for 
the body of Jesus? " 

" Mary Magdalene and the other Mary." 

" Were these Marys his mother ? " 

" No." 

"His sisters?" 

" No." 

" Then they must have been his wives." — 
Report of a Conversation with a Mormon Mis- 
sionary. 



MORMONISM 149 

A gentleman living in Utah writes: "Yesterday 
a Mormon young woman told me that her father 
paid every tenth load of hay for tithing when he 
brought it from the field. During the winter 
when he sold the remaining hay he also gave 
every tenth dollar. Also with his cattle he gives 
one-tenth of what he has, and the next year he 
tithes the same stock over again, giving one- 
tenth of all, thus including the cattle from which 
he has paid for many years, plus the increase. 
This man is in moderate circumstances, yet he 
pays $500 a year tithing. He asked the officials 
if, having once tithed his hay and stock, he must 
again tithe them when they were sold by giving 
one-tenth of the amount realised, and was told 
that he must do so. Is it any wonder that this 
organisation is so abundantly provided with the 
' sinews of war '? " 

An old man, leaving his home and family at the 
command of the church authorities — possibly 
because he was suspected of disaffection — re- 
joiced in the opportunity to go to Denmark on 
a mission, expressing himself as " lucky to have 
the chance to travel." 

The priesthood takes advantage of the desire 
for travel and adventure in the hearts of the 
young, and sends out its young men as mis- 
sionaries. Said a high-school graduate, " I'll 
not begin my study of law for three years, but 
dad is going to make use of me meanwhile. I 



150 UNDER OUR FLAG 

am going on a mission to Holland. I don't know- 
how much preaching I'll do, but I'll see Germany 
and have a good time. Us Mormon kids get a 
good chance to see the world! " (For illustration 
of Mormon missionary work, read " By Order of 
the Prophet.") 

Three hundred American Mormons are re- 
ported as attending the dedication of a Mormon 
temple in Copenhagen. The Book of Mormon 
has been translated into fourteen different lan- 
guages, including German, French, Danish, 
Italian, Dutch, Welsh, Swedish, Spanish, 
Hawaiian, Hindostanee, Maori, Samoan and 
Tahitian. 

Said a Mormon wife, speaking of polygamy, 
" Oh, it is hard, very hard. But no matter, we 
must bear it. It is a correct principle, and there 
is no salvation without it." 

Said another, " While it would break my heart 
to have my husband take another wife, yet if the 
laws allowed him to I would have to yield, for it 
is a sacred command, and my welfare in the next 
world depends upon it." 

The following statement by a Mormon woman 
illustrates one phase of polygamy : " We had one 
wife, but it was so hard, both for my husband and 
myself, that we could not endure it and she left 
us at the end of seven months. She had been 



MORMONISM 151 

with us as a servant girl several months, and was 
a good girl. But as soon as she was made a wife 
she became insolent, and told me she had as good 
a right to the house and things as I had, and 
you know that didn't suit me very well. But I 
wish we had kept her and I had borne everything, 
for we have got to have one, and don't you think 
it would be pleasanter to have one you had known 
than a stranger? " 

Joseph Smith's wife seems to have been some- 
what rebellious, for in the " revelation " com- 
manding plural marriage, " Mine handmaid, 
Emma Smith," is carefully commanded " to abide 
and cleave unto my servant Joseph, and to no one 
else." Evidently the rule of plurality was not 
meant to work both ways. 

Two sisters of a man's first wife became his 
fifth and sixth wives, and the mother of these 
was the seventh, " for the salvation of her 
eternal state." This man had nineteen wives in 
all, and sixty-four children! 



IN A MORMON SUNDAY-SCHOOL 

14 The teacher announced that the lesson for 
the day was the Passover. A little boy was asked 
to tell the story of the Passover in Egypt, and he 
did it in a creditable manner. Then the teacher 



152 UNDER OUR FLAG 

gave a half-hour's discourse, beginning with the 
Feast of the Passover, at which time Christ in- 
stituted the Lord's Supper and foretold His own 
suffering and death. In speaking of the resur- 
rection of Jesus, the teacher laid special stress 
upon the fact that the Lord was not buried under 
the ground, but in a sepulchre with only a stone 
rolled against the opening, and that otherwise He 
could not have come forth from the grave when 
He came back to life. Then several stories were 
told of people who were buried alive, but could 
not get out of their coffins because they were un- 
der the ground. The class was told that Jesus 
appeared to a great number of people before His 
ascension, and also that He appeared to the 
Nephites right here in the United States. 

" After telling this long story, the allotted time 
for the study of the lesson not having yet ex- 
pired, the remainder of the time was taken up 
by telling fairy stories and singing songs. As it 
was Thanksgiving season they sang such selec- 
tions as ' Father, We Thank Thee ' and ' Carloads 
of Pumpkins.' 

" The boys and girls who were eight years of 
age were urged to be baptised into the kingdom. 
The boys were told to be good little Latter-Day 
Saints, so they might some day be sent out on a 
mission. 

"As a reward for good behavior the children 
were promised a nice dance sometime next month. 
It was said that such a good spirit was mani- 



MORMONISM 153 

fest in the last dance they had, that it was thought 
wise to have another one soon." 



MORMONISM IN HYMNS 

I'll be a little Mormon and seek to know the ways 
That God has blest His people in these the latter days I 
I know that He has blest me with mercies rich and 

kind, 
And I will strive to serve Him with all my might and 

mind. 

By sacred revelation, which He to us has given, 
He tells us how to follow the ancient saints to heaven; 
Though I am young and little, I too may learn forth- 
with 
To love the precious Gospel revealed to Joseph Smith. 

With Jesus for the standard, a pure and perfect guide, 
And Joseph's wise example, what can I need beside? 
I'll strive from every evil to keep my heart and tongue, 
I'll be a little Mormon and follow Brigham Young! 



Go, welcome his people, let nothing preclude you, 
Come Joseph and Simeon, and Reuben and Judah, 
Come Naphtali, Issachar, Levi and Dan, 
Gad, Zebulon, Assher, and come, Benjamin. 



Sound, oh, sound the trump of fame, 

Let Jesus with the Mormon name 

Ring through the world with loud applause, 

The Bible shall defend our cause. 



154 UNDER OUR FLAG 



THE ETERNAL FATHER AND MOTHER 

I had learned to call Thee Father, 
Through Thy Spirit from on high, 

But until the Key of Knowledge 
Was restored, I knew not why. 

In the heavens are parents single? 

No, the thought makes reason stare. 
Truth is reason ; truth eternal 

Tells me I've a mother there. 

When I leave this frail existence, 

When I lay this mortal by, 
Father, Mother, may I meet you 

In your royal court on high? 

Then at length when I've completed 

All you send me here to do, 
With your mutual approbation 

Let me come and dwell with you. 



It matters not when or whither 
You go, neither whom among, 

Only so that you closely follow 
Your leader, Brigham Young. 

The blessings of heaven attend you, 

Both in time and eternity, 
If you strictly attend to the counsel 

Of Brigham and Heber C. 

In sunshine, in storms and in tempests, 
In all changes, console yourselves 

That your sharers in sorrow and joy are 
Brigham, Heber, and all the Twelve, 



MORMONISM 155 



WORDS OF WARNING 

The strength, the perpetuity and the destiny 
of the nation rest upon our homes established 
by the law of God, guarded by parental authority, 
and sanctified by parental love. These are not 
the homes of polygamy. — President Cleveland, in 
First Annual Message. 

Think of its evil origin of deceit; its history 
of crime; its covert practice of polygamy every- 
where where Mormons are found, more pro- 
nounced now than ever before ; its doctrine of 
blood atonement which has never been repudiated 
and which can be enforced when considered 
politic ; its debasing conception of a polygamous 
God and Saviour — the Holy Spirit a kind of 
mesmeric fluid imparted by the laying on of 
hands ; its lying practices and unequalled pro- 
fanity; its school of deception where the mis- 
sionaries are trained before going out to preach ; 
and its treasonable faith. Loyal to the United 
States! Not in the faintest mental conception. 
Their political designs, which they are quietly 
but surely carrying out, are stupendous. When 
one thinks of it all, and of the apathy of the 
people while this Satanic faith is spreading all 
around the world, it is hard to remain calm. — 
Mrs. Darwin S. James, President Presbyterian 
Woman's Board of Missions. 



156 UNDER OUR FLAG 

Northern Mexico contains six flourishing 
Mormon colonies, in all of which polygamy is 
practised without let or hindrance, and in all of 
which the population is increasing with great 
rapidity. 

These Mormon communities will become in 
no real sense Mexican, but remain outlying parts 
of the great Mormon imperium in imperio which 
is building up in our own domain. They keep the 
institution of polygamy more than doctrinally 
alive. Their people come and go between the 
Mexican colonies and Arizona and Utah. The 
temples wherein their polygamous elders are 
" sealed " to plural wives stand on United States 
territory. The Mormons have annexed Mexico 
for the purposes of polygamy. 

In addition to these, they have recently pur- 
chased a sort of peninsula which projects into 
the United States, being bounded west by Ari- 
zona and east by Texas. All the men whose 
names have appeared in connection with the pur- 
chase are Mormons of Utah, and there is more 
than a suspicion that it is an important step in 
connection with a new and greater movement of 
Mormons from the United States upon a large 
tract of land in Mexico, contiguous to the United 
States, which they can develop according to their 
well-known thrifty methods, and call their own. 

But if they are the purchasers of this land, they 
are not purchasing it to provide for a Mormon 
exodus. They are not going to abandon the 



MORMONISM 157 

parent hive at all — they are simply going to send 
out a big swarm from it. The Mormons have 
been making many proselytes lately, both in the 
East and in Europe. They must have thousands 
of colonists ready for location somewhere. There 
can be no reasonable doubt that they look forward 
to the day when northern Mexico, as well as 
the mountain region of our West, will be pre- 
dominantly Mormon. When that day comes the 
agriculture of Arizona will be almost wholly in 
Mormon hands. A more or less compact Mor- 
mon community will exist over a country extend- 
ing from the middle of Montana on the north to 
the Mexican State of Durango on the south, a 
distance of fifteen hundred miles, and from the 
Rockies on the east to the Sierras on the west. 
Their " State of Deseret " is, at least in their own 
imaginations, greatly extending its borders. — 
New York Times, 1903. 

Travellers, excursionists and business ex- 
ploiters are easily blinded to the real character 
of Mormonism. On the trains, in hotels, and in 
business places, Mormons are not easily distin- 
guished from Gentiles. It is therefore necessary 
to call attention to the fact that there is a dis- 
tinction between Christianity and Mormonism. 

In some respects Mormonism resembles Mo- 
hammedanism. Each has a false prophet and a 
false Bible. Each has a polygamous priesthood, 
and claims a monopoly of saving power. Each 



158 UNDER OUR FLAG 

holds to the Christian revelation and superadds 
a pretended revelation. There are many things 
that distinguish Mormonism from Christianity. 
Mormonism insists on faith in Joseph Smith as a 
divine prophet, in the Book of Mormon as a 
divine revelation, and in the authority of the 
Mormon priesthood. Faith in all this is abso- 
lutely essential to salvation. It teaches that God 
was only a man, still going on to perfection, that 
Adam was God, and the natural father of Jesus 
Christ, and that there are multitudes of Gods, and 
that God is a polygamist, and that Jesus Christ 
was a polygamist. It debases woman to the Turk- 
ish level, gives her no chance for the future unless 
she is married naturally or spiritually to some 
man, and says her greatest work is to furnish 
bodies for the vast multitude of souls hovering 
about the earth waiting and watching for bodies 
in which to be born. 

The Christian church has as definite a mission 
in Utah as in any heathen land. — jBishop Charles 
H. Fowler, of the Methodist Episcopal Church. 

MEMORY TEST 

Who was Joseph Smith? 
Give the history of the Book of Mormon. 
Name some of the " revelations " issued by 
Smith. 

Do the Mormons believe in the Bible ? 

What three factors give Mormonism its power ? 



MORMONISM 159 

Describe the tithing system as practised by 
these people. 

Why is Mormonism a danger to our govern- 
ment? 

Where are Mormon missionaries at work, and 
with what results? 

Give Mormon statements concerning polyg- 
amy. 

What is baptism for the dead ? 

Why is it difficult to convict a polygamist in 
Utah? 

Was the promise of Utah to do away with 
polygamy made in good faith ? 

What must be done to make it possible for the 
Federal Government to reach and punish polyga- 
mists? 

What is the effect of Mormonism upon 
women ? 

Describe a Mormon Sunday-school. 

How are the Mormons extending their bor- 
ders? 

BIBLE LESSON 

Christ's Law of the Home 

The type of paternal love — Luke 15:11, 20-25. 
Childhood the type of Himself — Luke 9 47-48. 
The law of family love — Matt. 5 :2i-25. 
The law of marriage — Matt. 5:31-32. 
The law of filial obligation — Mark 7:9-13. 
The law of hospitality — Luke 9:1-5: 10:5-6. 



160 UNDER OUR FLAG 

The law of the guest — Luke 10 7-9. 
The law of conscience — Luke 8:19-21. 
The supreme law of God — Matt. 10 137. 

See " Jesus and the Family " in " The Prin- 
ciples of Jesus " (Robert E. Speer). 

THE TEST OF LOVE 

(Tune— Ortonville.) 

O Lord and Master of us all, 

Whate'er Thy name or sign, 
We own Thy sway, we hear Thy call, 

We test our lives by Thine. 

To Thee our full humanity, 

Its joys and pains belong; 
The wrong of man to man on Thee 

Inflicts a deeper wrong. 

Who hates, hates Thee, who loves becomes 

Therein to Thee allied; 
All sweet accords of hearts and homes 

In Thee are multiplied. 

We faintly hear, we dimly see, 

In differing phrase we pray; 
But dim or clear, we own in Thee 

The Light, the Truth, the Way! 

— J. G. Whittier. 



VIII 
WHERE EXTREMES MEET 

SAID a bishop of the Methodist Episcopal 
Church in the early days of organised Home 
Missionary effort by its women, " You have 
two fields before you — the frontiers and the cities. 
The latter is the largest and most important, and 
will eventually claim the largest share of the at- 
tention of your society. But you cannot touch 
cities with systematic effort until you have a 
strong organisation. You must begin with the 
frontiers." 

The prophecy has found abundant fulfilment. 
More and more are missionary workers in the 
home field learning that cities are strategic points, 
politically, morally, socially, and spiritually. In 
them " the rich and the poor meet together," 
and the problem of the Church of Christ is to 
bring about the state of society and civic condi- 
tions that can result only from full realisation 
that " the Lord is the maker of them all." 

The needs of our cities — what are they ? God's 
blessed air and light in place of dark, damp 
tenement-houses, breeders of malaria and foster- 
ers of crime ; room for the joyous, glad childhood 
161 



162 UNDER OUR FLAG 

to which every boy and girl is entitled — room for 
play which shall mean contact with " mother 
earth," in place of the debasing influence of the 
sidewalk and street; room for mental growth 
rather than the dwarfing slavery of factory, shop, 
and store — room for spiritual growth through 
a wise Christianity that believes in " downtown 
churches." Answers like these come instinctively 
to our lips as the question is asked. Second 
thought goes deeper. 

Civic corruption seems to dominate city life, 
scarcely a community of any considerable size 
being free from its taint. Foreigners, bring- 
ing with them the low ideals, the degenerate tend- 
encies of the Old World, herd in our cities— no 
other word describes it — and are unreached by 
American civilisation and Christian sympathy 
and uplifting. Homelessness is on the increase, 
since those who can afford to do so are more and 
more taking residence in the suburbs. Clubs are 
no more homes than are tenement-houses. This 
exodus leaves the city in the control, so far as 
government is concerned, of the less responsible 
and less fitted for such a burden. Churches are 
gradually moved farther and farther away from 
the centres of population, missions, in some cases, 
taking their places — the very name often repelling 
those for whom they are established. Well does 
Dr. Josiah Strong say, " Ignorance, vice, and 
wretchedness, combined, constitute social dyna- 
mite, of which the city slum is the magazine, 



WHERE EXTREMES MEET 163 

awaiting only a casual spark to burst into terrific 
destruction." 

Especially must the menace of the liquor traffic 
be considered in any discussion of city conditions. 
More arrogant, more powerful, more treacherous, 
if possible, than anywhere else in the land, it 
often holds municipal government, education, life 
and health, in its deadly grasp, and is amenable 
neither to law nor Gospel. To quote again from 
Dr. Strong, in " The Twentieth Century City " : 

" A New York brewer said, ' The church peo- 
ple can drive us when they try, and we know it. 
Our hope is in working after they are tired, and 
continuing to work three hundred and sixty-five 
days in the year.' Who does not exclaim with 
Dr. Parkhurst, ' Oh, what a world this would 
soon be if the perseverance of the saints were 
made of as enduring stuff as the perseverance of 
the sinners ! ' " 

Organised missionary work in our home cities 
has two notable centres, around which, in the 
main, its efforts are concentrated — children and 
foreigners. 

As pointed out by Miss Jane Addams, of Hull 
House, in " Democracy and Social Ethics," chil- 
dren are children, whether clad in velvet or rags. 
The freebooters in embryo, who steal lead pipe 
from untenanted houses, buy beer with the pro- 
ceeds and dare each other to face the policeman, 
are but the counterparts of country boys with 



164 UNDER OUR FLAG 

their rods and guns, and their inherent love of ad- 
venture. It is startling to charitable instincts, to 
be sure, to have a family spend for photographs 
money given for the purchase of coal; but have 
they not a right to family love and pride as well 
as we? In other words, the absence of true 
homes, and the suppression of family life and the 
natural characteristics of childhood, are impor- 
tant factors in making the city what it is to-day. 

The normal child is a creature of perpetual 
motion. The child of the city finds his chief op- 
portunity in the street, and from the stolen ride 
on the back of a trolley car or the unwarranted 
picking up of wood from places where building 
is going on, it is an easy transition to the theft of 
apples from a push-cart, and then to larger steal- 
ings. In the school, or factory, or store, there is 
constant repression — and that, without safe re- 
laxation to follow, is perilous education. Bless- 
ings on the vacant lots, in which childhood may 
romp and " perform " to its heart's content. 
They have saved more lives to manhood and wo- 
manhood than can be computed in the arithmetic 
of earth. 

While the plan of this book calls for the study 
of conditions rather than of causes, it will not 
be out of harmony to refer to one special factor in 
the city child's concept of authority, municipal, 
State, and national. The " city fathers " must be 
recognised in considering the conditions of our 
great cities. Whether standing, personally, for 



WHERE EXTREMES MEET 165 

clean or dirty politics, whether honestly elected, 
or chosen through franchises bought and sold 
like merchandise over the counter, there are cer- 
tain things an alderman representing a city's 
slum must be, if he stand at all. These are sum- 
marised by Miss Addams in the book mentioned 
above, somewhat after this fashion : 

He must not be too good — that is, his standard 
must not be above that of his constituents. In 
practice, this often means that he must help a 
constituent out of trouble without engaging in 
curious investigation as to whether or not the man 
deserves to be in trouble — else what is the value 
of a " pull " ? He is expected to override the 
civil service and all other laws, if necessary, for 
the protection of the people of his ward. It is the 
old patriarchal system — a blind groping that aims 
at the extension of the family type into public life. 

His gambling place may run, his saloon may 
be kept open long after legal hours of closing, 
but police headquarters would be sadly embar- 
rassed if either, by some unfortunate mistake, 
should be raided. He must pay rent for unfortu- 
nate constituents and find jobs and secure fat 
places in city departments for those who have 
voted for him. An alderman in a certain city 
boasted that he had 2600 men from his ward on 
the public payroll. This was one-third of the 
entire vote of the ward — one chance in three for 
the men who voted for him to get work — or, what 
was more to the point, to get pay. 



166 UNDER OUR FLAG 

Companies seeking city franchises find it con- 
venient to heed the applicants for positions who 
are sent by aldermen. The " city father " gives 
free excursions to his constituents, makes pres- 
ents to his numerous baby namesakes, supplies 
railroad passes, buys tickets for balls and fairs, 
and " chances " galore, and is in his element at a 
church bazaar. Free drinks and turkeys mark 
Thanksgiving and Christmas for him and for the 
recipients of his bounty. 

This " boss " has his supreme opportunity on 
funeral occasions ; he puts his hand into his 
pocket — or into that of the city — and prevents 
burial in the pauper's field, that bete noir of the 
poor whose scant earnings are drawn on for 
burial insurance, when they utterly fail to meet 
the needs of the living. He is good to the widow 
and the fatherless, he " knows the poor better 
than the big guns who are always talking about 
civil service and reform." 

What bearing has all this upon city needs? 
Chiefly in its effects upon family life and the 
convictions of childhood. With the people thus 
royally served by what seems simply the mani- 
festation of " human friendliness," what chance 
is there for the exposure of corruption, for teach- 
ing the sacredness of the franchise, for a clean 
municipal government? And yet this is what 
goes on, and the only remedy is the arousal to 
civic righteousness, through the redemptive 
power of personal righteousness, day after 



WHERE EXTREMES MEET 167 

day, year after year, in every large city in the 
land. 

We need not dwell upon the dangers to wom- 
anhood in our cities, save to note a single point. 
It is said there are but two places in Chicago in 
which a respectable woman without funds may 
hope for a respectable night's shelter. How is it 
elsewhere ? 

What becomes of the thousands of immigrants 
that annually make this country their home ? One 
answer to the question may be found in the fol- 
following synopsis, taken from The Christian 
Herald: 

" The present population of Chicago is over 
two millions. About ninety per cent, of the peo- 
ple are foreign by birth or parentage. Every 
continent, and some of the islands of the earth, 
are represented. Sixty languages are spoken. 
Different nationalities colonise in different parts 
of the city, until one can visit Bohemia, Poland, 
Italy, and other lands, without leaving the city 
limits. 

" There are more Germans than in any city in 
Germany except Berlin, and more Poles than in 
any city in Poland. One city missionary visiting 
from house to house during the afternoon of a 
single week, offered the Gospel to fifteen nation- 
alities. In one section, not two miles square, 
eighteen languages are spoken. Many of these 
people do not understand English. Most of 



168 UNDER OUR FLAG 

them are nominally Romanists, and these things 
greatly increase the difficulty of reaching them 
with the Gospel. But a glance at the city shows 
how much the Gospel is needed. About 6000 
saloons are doing business. These employ 
31,600 persons, and have a daily income of 
$316,000. In a single saloon, on a certain ordi* 
nary Sabbath evening at seven o'clock, there were 
counted 524 men. Within the next two hours 
480 more entered, until men were standing six- 
deep around the gambling tables. There are 
3000 billiard and pool rooms. Houses of im- 
purity abound. In one ward were counted 312, 
in which were found 1708 inmates. A thousand 
men are engaged in alluring men into these dens. 

" The religious and moral destitution of the 
masses is startling. Some years ago a section 
was canvassed, and it was found that of 1280 
families visited, 1220 did not possess God's 
Word, neither were they willing to receive it. 
The canvass of another section revealed 1140 
families with no Bible, with 1823 families neg- 
lecting public worship, and nearly 2000 chil- 
dren in no Sunday-school. It is not uncommon 
to find people who never saw a Bible, and do not 
know it when shown to them. One woman pro- 
duced on invitation what she thought was her 
Bible ; when, on her failing to find the Gospel of 
John, the visitor came to her assistance, it was 
to discover that she had Webster's Dictionary in 
her hand. ' Well/ said she, ' if that is not a 



WHERE EXTREMES MEET 169 

Bible, then we do not have one.' There are said 
to be twelve atheistic Sunday-schools in opera- 
tion in the city, the members of which are indoc- 
trinated by means of a catechism whose summary 
states that there is no God, no Christ, no Holy 
Ghost, no heaven, no hell, no virtue in Chris- 
tianity and no integrity in its ministers." 

According to the census of 1900, more than 
one-third of all the aliens in the United States 
cannot speak English. A large proportion of 
these are in Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Texas, 
and the extreme Western States and Territories. 

The percentage of non-English-speaking aliens 
is greatest in the cities. Notable instances of this 
are found in Allegheny, Cleveland, Pittsburg, 
Scranton, and Milwaukee. Of those who have 
taken out naturalisation papers in the latter city, 
21.6 per cent, of the total number of foreign- 
born males of voting age cannot speak English. 
In other words, more than one-fifth of the foreign- 
born voters of Milwaukee do not know the 
language of the country whose destinies they help 
to control ! 

Foreigners are clannish — so are we. Have we 
not an " American colony " in every foreign city? 
Full often the seeds of anarchism and nihilism 
are sown in their hearts, even if they have not 
germinated before these aliens land on our shores. 
In the isolation enforced by their own customs — 
and ours — and by reason of the freedom of speech 
and press, the conditions are favorable for the 



170 UNDER OUR FLAG 

growth of such seeds. Only by showing that 
there is something better than destruction, some- 
thing really worth living for, can a large pro- 
portion of those who reach our shores be made 
a safe element in our body politic. 

The concentration of foreigners in the mining 
districts of the country is another serious feature 
of the immigration problem. Poles, Hungarians 
and Italians constitute a large part of the work- 
men in the coal mines — men whose votes count 
the same as those of native-born citizens, but men, 
as a rule, with no other education in citizenship 
than that given by the " boss," and able to read 
their ballots only so far as the picture symbol of 
the party that has claimed their allegiance. 

But these men, miserable as their condition is, 
have apologies for homes. The nomads of our 
population, the " gangs " that build our railroads, 
dig our canals, construct our great reservoirs, do 
the hard work of installing irrigation plants 
in the Far West — these men, controlled by the 
padrone system and bound hand and foot through 
debts contracted in their ignorance — these men 
have absolutely no homes — but they are voters. 

HOMES OF "THE OTHER HALF" 

Can you picture to yourself two rooms — called 
home — where the sun never shines? This sun- 
less home is in a rear house five steps below the 
street level. 



WHERE EXTREMES MEET 171 

The general living room is cold and damp and 
there is a suspicious sort of scratch and scramble 
behind the stove, which makes one creep all over, 
when a big rat takes itself off into the unex- 
plored depths under the chimney. Then follows 
the explanation of an old broom handle kept in 
the bed to pound the floor with when the rats 
come out — " But sure, lady, them's so bold them's 
getten not afraid of me stick; there's too much 
rats in this house " — and so the lady thinks as she 
watches under the chimney expecting any minute 
to see — " too much of a rat." 

"Why no fire to-day?" asks the visitor. 
" Sure, lady, you see I'm trying to save all I can 
for me baby ; it's not so cold on me in bed, and it 
costs thirteen cents to feed that stove with coal 
only one day. My man he has not much work ; 
he's gone now to a saloon to get a free lunch, and 
then he brings home a five-cent soup for me; it's 
hot and that warms me up. My man he only 
cleans out beer pipes in the saloons around town 
and only makes about $4 in a week and not always 
that ; then we pays $4 for our room and then tnes 
to live and save a bit for me baby, but we haven't 
saved any yet." 

The five-days old son who is an heir in his 
own right to rats and poverty and the " bit " yet 
to be saved, is just as welcome, just as much 
loved, and just as happy as if he had been born 
into a mansion. 

Our next visit is not in a basement, but an 



172 UNDER OUR FLAG 

old attic, and I wish I could show you an interior 
view, for it is quite impossible to describe it. In 
the lower hall (for the first floor is a saloon and 
gambling den), the water came up over my rub- 
bers, and the plastered ceiling had tumbled down 
so that the laths were everywhere exposed with 
the water running through. It was so dark and 
horrid I dreaded going up, but I knew that there 
were two old, helpless people under the roof, so I 
opened my umbrella and climbed up over the 
debris toward the top. It was the same on every 
landing and my only wonder was that the whole 
old frame house did not blow down. Such hard 
faces as one meets in these halls make it seem like 
a hiding place for criminals. Certainly the dregs 
of many nationalities have found a refuge in old 

" 79-" 

In the room of the old people water was pour- 
ing through the roof and everything in the room 
was soaked, even the bed. Mrs. H., over 
eighty years old, sat by the tiny stove crying, and 
holding an umbrella over a can of milk which the 
lame old husband had just brought from the diet 
kitchen. Mr. H. was nailing pieces of old boxes 
down on the floor where the boards had rotted 
away and broken through. Suddenly he looked 
up and pointed to half of a loaf of wet bread and 
a small bag of peas soaked by water and said: 
" There's our food for to-day and to-morrow 
gone! Oh, such a dreadful hole, but when 
spring comes we can get a little work, and then 



WHERE EXTREMES MEET 1*3 

we'll move. People say we ought to go to the 
Island, but we are not criminals ; I've been well 
brought up and never expected to come to this. 
I'm over eighty, it's a little while I've yet to live ; 
we'd like to stay together because I'm so help- 
less." 

"Your religion," said a girl in a Catholic home, 
" is not good. Your minister can't forgive sins. 
Your religion was made by Martin Luther, my 
religion came from Christ." 

I explained to her what the word " Protestant " 
meant, how Luther came to separate from the 
Romish church, and repeating the Creed, which 
greatly astonished the young girl, I said : " Read 
the Word of God, search the truth in the Bible, 
Katie, and God will lead you into light." 

" What ! Read the Bible— the Protestant Bible ? 
No, I won't ; there are things in it I have been 
told not to read, things only the priests must 
know." — City Mission Monthly, New York 
City. 

MEMORY TEST 

Why did Home Missionary work begin with 
the frontiers? 

Name some of the inherent rights of child- 
hood? 

What special dangers in city government result 
from suburban life? 



1V4 UNDER OUR FLAG 

Which is better, a down-town " mission " or a 
down-town church? Why? 

Give the quotation from Dr. Parkhurst. How 
does it apply to the temperance question? 

What effect does tenement-house life have 
upon childhood? 

What are the dangers in street education of 
children ? 

What are the objections to factory or store life 
for children? 

What picture is given of " city fathers " ? 

What bearing has this upon Home Missions ? 

Give illustrations of the dangers to womanhood 
in city life. 

Describe the nationalities found in Chicago. 

Illustrate the religious destitution of our cities. 

What is atheism doing? 

What startling fact is given concerning the 
alien population of Milwaukee? 

What is the remedy for anarchism ? 

Describe conditions in the mining regions? 
How is it along the lines of new railroads, canals, 
etc.? 

BIBLE LESSON 

Strangers and Sojourners 
[To be read responsively\ 
Thou shalt neither vex a stranger nor oppress 
him, 

For ye were strangers in the land of Egypt. — 
Ex. 22: 21. 



WHERE EXTREMES MEET 175 

Thou shalt not oppress a stranger; 

For ye know the heart of a stranger, seeing 
ye were strangers in the land of Egypt. — Ex. 
23:9. 

Six days thou shalt do thy work, and on the 
seventh day thou shalt rest; that thine ox and 
thine ass may rest, and the son of thy handmaid, 
and the stranger, may be refreshed. — Ex. 23 : 12. 

Thoa shalt not glean thy vineyard, neither 
shalt thou gather every grape of thy vineyard ; 

Thou shalt leave them for the poor and 
stranger; I am the Lord your God. — Lev. 19: 10. 

If a stranger sojourn with thee in your land, 
ye shalt not vex him. 

But the stranger that dwelleth with you shall 
be unto you as one born among you, and thou 
shalt love him as thyself. — Lev. 19:33-34. 

// thy brother be waxen poor, and fallen into 
decay with thee, tlien thou shalt relieve hint. 

Yea, though he be a stranger, or a sojourner; 
that he may live with thee. — Lev. 25 : 35. 

Judge righteously between every man and his 
brother, 

And the stranger that is with him. — Deut. 1 : 
16. 

Thou shalt rejoice in every good thing which 
the Lord thy God hath given unto thee and unto 
thine house. 

Thou, and the Levite, and the stranger that is 
among you. — Deut. 26: II. 



1V6 UNDER OUR FLAG 

Gather the people together, men and women 
and children, and the stranger that is within thy 
gates, 

That they may hear, and that they may learn, 
and fear the Lord your God, and observe to do 
all the words of this law. — Deut. 31:12. 

The Lord preserve th the strangers; he re- 
lieveth the fatherless and widow; 

But the way of the wicked he turneth upside 
down. — Psalms 146 : 9. 



THE CHILD AT THE DOOR 

(Tune— " There's a Stranger at the Door.") 
Behold, I stand at the door and knock? 

There's a child outside your door; 

Let him in! 
He may never pass it more; 

Let him in! 
Let a little wandering waif 
Find a shelter sweet and safe 
In the love and light of home; 

Let him come! 

There's a cry along your street, 

Day by day ! 
There's a sound of little feet 

Gone astray. 
Open wide your guarded gate 
For the little ones that wait, 
Till a voice of love from home 

Bid them come. 



WHERE EXTREMES MEET 177 

There's a voice divinely sweet 

Calls to-day; 
" Will you let these little feet 

Stray away? " 
Let the lambs be homeward led, 
And of you it shall be said, 
•' Ye have done it faithfully 

Unto Me." 

— Mary A. Lathbury. 



IX 

SUGGESTIONS FOR HOME MISSIONARY 
MEETINGS 

HAVE a " progressive conversation " on 
Home Missionary topics. Name a defi- 
nite time, say five minutes, for each 
theme assigned, and secure a " change of part- 
ners " at the end of each period. 

Appoint reporters, each to serve for a definite 
time, whose business it shall be to gather Home 
Missionary news from other sources than regular 
missionary papers, and present it at the meetings. 
Newspapers and magazines furnish abundant 
items for such a resume, if one's eyes are open 
to see them. 



THEMES FOR WRITTEN PAPERS OR IN- 
FORMAL TALKS 

Tilled and Untilled Fields in America. 

Why organise Missionary societies among 
young people ? 

How do present conditions in China affect 
Home Missionary work for the Chinese ? 
178 



SUGGESTIONS 179 

The best Missionary meeting I ever attended — 
and why? 

The poorest — and why? 

A Home Missionary Journey (describing visits 
to the several missionary fields.) 

Little Brothers and Sisters — (children in 
Alaska, Hawaii, Porto Rico, etc.). 

A Fourth of July Home Missionary Service. 

Why is Mormonism more dangerous to the 
country than the crime of bigamy? 

Slaves — white and yellow — in this country to- 
day. 

A HOME MISSIONARY ROUND TABLE 

Arrange the seats around a tabic — a circular 
one, if possible. On the table place the following 
numbered articles : 

1. A box of cotton bolls ; if these cannot be ob- 
tained, use cotton-wool. 

2. The picture of a reindeer. 

3. A horseshoe magnet to which several nails 
cling. 

4. The picture of a burro laden for travelling. 

5. A handful of coffee beans. 

6. Strips of sugar-cane; lacking these, lumps 
of sugar. 

7. Wreath of artificial flowers. 

8. A bottle of turpentine. 

9. Picture of Admiral Dewey. 

10. A handful of rice. 



180 UNDER OUR FLAG 

ii. An Eskimo doll. 

12. A bow tied from two strips of white mull. 

13. Picture of an ocean steamship. 

14. Indian bead-work or weaving. 

15. A pair of chopsticks or some other Chinese 
curio. 

16. A piece of coal. 

17. A specimen of drawn work. 

18. Strips of red and yellow cambric. 

19. A bandage roll. 

20-25. Pictures of leading Home Missionary 
workers. 

Supply sheets of paper, and pencils, to those 
present and ask each to write the name of the 
Home Mission field, or work, represented by the 
several objects, numbering the answers to cor- 
respond with the articles. If it is desired to in- 
troduce the element of competition, a subscription 
to the Woman's Home Missionary organ of the 
denomination (for herself or a friend) may be 
given to the one presenting the poorest list. A 
skilful manager may introduce other features, 
such as a statement concerning each mission field, 
personal choice of fields, comparison of the work 
for Chinese in this country with the work in 
China, etc. 

(1. Work among Southern Negroes. 2. 
Alaska. 3. Mormonism, especially polygamy. 
4. New Mexico and Arizona. 5. Porto Rico. 
6-7. Hawaii (the luai, or wreaths for the shoul- 
ders, are an inseparable feature of all festive oc- 



SUGGESTIONS 181 

casions on the Hawaiian Islands). 8. Work 
among Southern mountaineers. 9. Philippine 
Islands. 10. Hawaii, Porto Rico, or the Phil- 
ippines. 11. Alaska. 12. Deaconess work — 
the " white ties." 13. Immigrant work. 14. 
Indians. 15. Chinese. 16. Work in the mining 
regions. 17. Mexican work in the West. 18. 
Work among Spanish-speaking people. 19. 
Hospitals. 20-25. Missionary names that should 
be familiar.) 

A FIELD DAY 

Placard the walls of the room with telling 
facts concerning different fields of Home Mis- 
sionary work. These may be hand-printed in 
large letters on sheets of wrapping paper. Give 
personal invitations to be present, accompanying 
each with a small tag on which is written the 
name of the field the possessor is to champion. 
These tags worn in the buttonhole stimulate ques- 
tions and are excellent ads. Prepare typewritten 
answers to telling questions on each field. 

On assembling seat the "Indians," "Alaskans," 
" Mormons," etc., together. Intersperse the sing- 
ing of stirring missionary hymns with the other 
exercises. 



X 
TOPICS FOR THOUGHT 

IN the fall of 1902 the annual meeting of the 
National Spiritualists' Association was held 
in the city of New York. Among its features 
were reports from the four missionaries who had 
been at work under the auspices of the Associa- 
tion during the year. Two of these reported 
thirty-one meetings held in one month in the State 
of Texas, with four new Spiritualist societies as 
the result, and a total of 298 meetings with an ag- 
gregate attendance of 32,720 people. The others, 
working in Virginia, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michi- 
gan, etc., reported holding joint meetings with 
Methodists, Baptists, and other denominations ! 

" Not yet have we crowded opportunity. In- 
stead, we have waited for her." 

Said a poor old Negro woman, " De Lawd 
don' hurry, but I reckon He's managin'." 

Somehow I never feel like good things b'long 
to me till I pass 'em on to somebody else. — 
" Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch" 

" All human life belongs to Jesus Christ, and 
182 



TOPICS FOR THOUGHT 183 

it not only may be, but is lost now, without the 
Divine Redeemer." 

The Church can do large things much better 
than she can do small things. — Bishop of Mon- 
tana. 

In a well-deserved tribute to Mr. Samuel B. 
Capen, the distinguished President of the Ameri- 
can Board of Foreign Missions, Rev. Francis E. 
Clark says, " He is not so engrossed with the 
Foreign Missionary idea that he cannot see the 
evils or the needs of his own city, but presides at 
political meetings, takes the stump, when neces- 
sary, defends a cause, popular or unpopular, if he 
believes it to be right, and is as much a power 
for civic righteousness as for missionary ex- 
tension. " 

America for Christ ! Doesn't that slogan stir 
your soul, make your heart beat quickly ? It does 
that for me. 

America for Christ ! Again I sound the 
stimulating slogan. " America has become the 
wardrobe of the earth, the wheat-bin of the 
hemispheres, the corn-crib of all nations, the 
purveyor of meats to all markets, the successful 
competitor in the commercial trade of the globe, 
and the head banker of the world." Now let's 
make this same America thoroughly and truly 
Christian, that she may the more certainly ade- 



184 UNDER OUR FLAG 

quately fill the large place in the history of the 
world that God desires her to fill. — John Willis 
Baer. 

Sturdy, self-respecting morality, a readiness to 
do the rough work of the world without flinching, 
and at the same time an instant response to every 
call on the spirit of brotherly love and neighborly 
kindness — these qualities must rest at the founda- 
tion of good citizenship here in this republic if it 
is to achieve the greatness we hope for it among 
the nations of mankind. — President Roosevelt. 

" For we, 
Who scarce yet see 
Wisely to rule ourselves, are set 
Where ways have met, 
To lead the waiting nations on." 

" Home Missions," says an eminent foreign 
missionary, born and reared in India, " means 
that America must be won for Jesus Christ 
throughout her borders, so that she may conserve 
a high Christian life, and may do her God-ap- 
pointed work as an evangelist among the nations. 
More and more, as our history develops, we are 
forced into a wider world activity, and as we go 
the church must see that the civilisation we carry 
is filled with the spirit of the Gospel. If we fail 
to come to large Christian achievement and fruit- 
age at home, how shall we be empowered to 
permanently do our work abroad? The whole 
foreign missionary work of these United States 



TOPICS FOR THOUGHT 185 

rests back upon an effective and adequate pro- 
gramme of Home Missions." 

In the olden days the call for a Scottish clan 
to assemble for battle was sent by swift runners 
who bore a blood-dipped cross. O'er peak and 
fell, by mountain streams and through peaceful 
hamlets, sped the messenger till he could speed 
no farther. Then he thrust the cross into the 
nearest hand, with the cry, as voiced by the poet 
of the Highlands, 

" The muster place is Lanrick Mead, 
Instant the time! Speed, clansman, speed! " 

And he who received the weird symbol dropped 
plough in furrow, left stag at bay or bride at the 
altar, and hastened on with Clan-Alpine's fiery 
cross. 

In the hands of His church militant, God has 
placed a blood-stained cross. From man to man 
He bids us speed the message. Shall we be less 
ready, or less faithful than they who bore Clan- 
Alpine's message and signal? 



XI 
HOME MISSION BOOKS 

" "W IT THY don't they name some Home 
m(^ Missionary books? " 

It was an enthusiastic missionary 
meeting-, and books of value to those inter- 
ested in missionary work — and those who 
ought to be — were being named from the 
floor. But missions, apparently, meant those 
in foreign lands alone. The question was 
addressed to one of the most intelligent leaders 
of young people's work and thought in our coun- 
try, and his instant reply was, " Home Mission 
books? Why, there aren't any, are there?" 

The response gave food for thought. Was 
this lamentable condition of affairs really the 
case? It seemed a question best answered by 
the publishers of books, so it was sent to them, 
with the statement: 

"Anything illustrating conditions of life among 
the Indians, Mormons or Chinese, on Western 
frontiers (including Alaska), among the negroes 
and the mountaineers of the South, the foreign 
and tenement-house population of our great cities, 
or the natives of our colonial possessions, should 

186 



HOME MISSION BOOKS 187 

be of value to our workers. Books from your 
house will be gladly included in the list now 
being prepared for publication. " 

In response to this apparently definite state- 
ment, answers like these were received : 

" We beg to call your attention to (books 

on Prayers and Hymns). 

" We mark, as especially worthy of note, 

(a book on Africa) and (one on Mada- 
gascar.)" 

Another publisher mentioned a volume treating 
of life at the court of Siam as being particularly 
in the line of Home Missions, while yet another 
advised a special list of temperance books. 

" We have checked our missionary books in the 
catalogue sent you herewith," wrote one firm. 
" Though not distinctly in the line you suggest, 
the story of Paton and that of Mackay, especially, 
are considered standard, and have been so widely 
adopted for missionary libraries that they would 
seem to us to be as well fitted for the Home Mis- 
sionary work to which you allude." Paton, the 
Apostle of the South Sea Islands, and Mackay, 
the hero of Uganda ! 

Life in Japan, biographies of Neesima and 
Moffat, a history of Chinese literature, and the 
story of a home in Fiji were especially com- 
mended to notice. 

One was almost tempted to think Home Mis- 
sions a figment of the imagination, since these 
leading publishers of great cities had no com- 



188 UNDER OUR FLAG 

prehension of their existence. Clearly there must 
be personal search. 

The results of this search are classified below. 
The author and publishers of this book will be 
glad to receive word of other books that have 
proved worthy of note for Home Mission 
workers. 

Abbreviations (all addresses are in New York 
City unless otherwise stated): Appleton, A.; 
Baker & Taylor, B. T.; Baptist Publication 
Society (Philadelphia), B.; Crowell Cr.; D. C. 
Cook (Chicago), C. ; Doubleday, Page & Co., 
D. P.; Dodd, Mead & Co., D. M.; Harper 
Bros., H.; Houghton, Mifflin & Co. (Bos- 
ton, Mass.) H. M.; Little, Brown & Co. 
(Boston), L. B.; Macmillan, M.; Metho- 
dist Book Concern, M. B.; Methodist Episcopal 
Church South, M. E. S.; McClure, Phillips & 
Co., M. P.; S. C. Page & Co. (Boston) P.; Pil- 
grim Press (Boston), P. P.; Presbyterian Board 
of Publication (Philadelphia), P. B.; Fleming H. 
Revell Co., R.; Chas. Scribner's Sons, S. 

ALASKA 
The New Eldorado— M. M. Ballou, H. M., 

$1.50. 
Alaska — Rev. Dr. Sheldon H. Jackson, D. M., 

$1.15. 
Alaska and the Klondike — A. Heilprin, A., $1.75. 
Picturesque Alaska — Abby J. Woodman, H. M., 
$1.00. 



HOME MISSION BOOKS 189 

Kin-da-shon's Wife — Mrs. Eugene S. Willard, 
R., $1.00. A story of Alaskan conditions. 

THE CHINESE 
The Story of Chinatown — Mary E. ,Bamford, 

.C, $.08. 
The Lady of the Lily Feet— Helen F. Clark, B. 
These two books are illustrative of Chinese 
life in American cities, the latter dealing espe- 
cially with the sufferings of Chinese women. 
A Chinese Quaker — Mrs. Nellie Blessing Eyster, 
R, $1.50. 
A story based on experience, showing the re- 
sults of Christian work among the Chinese in this 
country. 

The Chinaman as We See Him — Rev. Dr. Ira 
M. Condit, R., $1.50. 
The history of Home Missionary work for 
the Chinese on the Pacific coast. 

CITIES 
Democracy and Social Ethics — Jane Addams, 

M.,$i.25. 
Modern Cities and Their Religious Problems, 

Samuel Lane Loomis, B. T., $1.00. 
The 20th Century City — Rev. Dr. Josiah Strong, 

B. T. (paper, 25 cents), $.50. 
How the Other Half Lives— Jacob A. Riis, S., 

$1.00. 
A Plain Woman's Story— Julia McNair Wright. 
P. P., $1.00. Dealing with the subject of 
sweat-shops. 



190 UNDER OUR FLAG 

The Leaven in a Great City — Lilian W. Betts, 
D. M., $1.50. Based on experiences in 
Settlement life and work. 
Down in Water Street— S. H. Hadley, R., $1.00. 
What God can do even in the slums, as illus- 
trated in the history of the old Water Street Mis- 
sion (established by Jerry McAuley). 

FRONTIERS 
The Minute Man of the Frontier— W. C. Pudde- 

foot, Cr., $1.00. 
A Frontier Hero— L. T. Thurston, P. P., $1.25. 
Black Rock—" Ralph Connor," R., $1.25. 
The Sky Pilot—" Ralph Connor," R., $1.25. 
The Apostle of the North— Rev. Egerton R. 

Young, R., $1.25. 
On the Indian Trail — Rev. Egerton R. Young, 

R., $1.00. 

HAWAIIAN ISLANDS 
Hawaiian America — Casper Whitney, H., $2.50. 
The Transformation of Hawaii — Belle M. Brain, 
R., $2.50. 

INDIANS 
A Century of Dishonor — Helen Hunt Jackson, 

L. B., $1.15. 
Indian Boyhood — Dr. Chas. A. Eastman, M. P., 
$1.60. 
Illustrative of the native traits and character 
of the Indians. The author, an educated Indian, 
knows whereof he writes. 



HOME MISSION BOOKS 191 

The Captain of the Gray Horse Troop — Hamlin 

Garland, H., $1.50. 
A charming story, illustrating two methods of 
dealing with the Indians, and their results. 
Our Life among the Iroquois Indians — Mrs. H. 

L. Caswell, P., $1.50. 

MISCELLANEOUS 

Expansion — Rev. Dr. Josiah Strong, B. T. 

(paper, 50 cents), $1.00. 
Our Country — Rev. Dr. Josiah Strong, B. T. 

(paper, 30 cents), .60. 
History of the Deaconess Movement — Rev. C. 

Golder, M. B., $1.75. 
Joy, the Deaconess — Elizabeth E. Holding, M. 

B., $.90. 
Leavening the Nation — Rev. Dr. Joseph B. 

Clark, B. T., $1.25. 
The Little Green God — Mrs. Caroline Atwater 

Mason, R., $.75. 
Those Black Diamond Men — YYm. Futhoy Gib- 
bons, R., $1.50. 
A tale of the mining regions of Pennsylvania. 

MORMONISM 

The Story of the Mormons — William Alexander 

Linn, M., $4.00. 
The Mormon Monster — Edgar E. Polk, R., 

$2.00. 
By Order of the Prophet— Rev. Alfred H. 

Henry, R., $1.50. 






192 UNDER OUR FLAG 



A powerful story showing the gradual disinte- 
gration of character produced by belief in Mor- 
monism. 
Rocky Mountain Saints — T. B. H. Stenhouse, 

A., $3.00. 
My Summer in a Mormon Village — Florence A. 
Merriam, H. M., $1.00. 

MOUNTAINEERS 

In the " Stranger People's " Country — Charles 
Egbert Craddock, H., $1.50. 
Other books by this author contain similar 
pictures of life and character in the Southern 
Highlands. 

The Puritan in Holland, England and America- 
Douglass Campbell, H., $5.00. 

NEGROES 

Our Brother in Black — Rev. Dr. Atticus G. Hay- 
good, M. E. S., $1.00. 

Up from Slavery — Booker T. Washington, D. P., 
$1.50. 

Character-Building — Booker T. Washington, D. 
P., $1.50. 

SPANISH-SPEAKING PEOPLE 

Old Glory and the Gospel in the Philippines — 

Dr. Alice B. Condict, R., $.75. 
The Cross of Christ in Bololand — John M. 

Dean, R., $1.00. 



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